Abstract
‘[The] average third world woman leads an essentially truncated life based on her feminine gender (read: sexually constrained) and being “third world” (read: ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, family-oriented, victimized, etc.). This, I suggest, is in contrast to the (implicit) self-representation of Western women as educated, modern, as having control over their own bodies and sexualities, and the freedom to make their own decisions’ (Mohanty, 2003: 337). Not much has changed regarding Western views of the ‘third world woman’ in the 37 years since Chandra Mohanty made these remarks – this is especially so when it comes to the heated topic of female circumcision, female genital cutting or what opponents refer to as female genital mutilation among African and Muslim women. In Richard Shweder’s (2022) conclusion of the target article, he outlines four key considerations that justify male circumcision and argues that these factors ought to also determine the acceptability of female circumcision in liberal democracies: (1) the practice is broadly supported by the communities that uphold them; (2) the practice is motivated by the fundamental principle of gender equality; (3) the practice is not more physically invasive than what is legally allowed for male circumcision; and (4) there is scant evidence of harm. Shweder (2022) points out that all four conditions are consistent with the practice of khatna – a mild, barely visible form of female circumcision among the Dawoodi Bohra. In this response article, we consider these four standards in our discussion of Kenya’s High Court ruling this year to uphold the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2011. It first describes the legal context for challenging the constitutionality of the Act and outlines the key provisions within the Kenyan Constitution and its Bill of Rights that the plaintiff identified in her petition, focusing especially on the rights of Kenyan women to bodily autonomy and cultural expression. It then delves into the complex symbolic, cultural and socio-religious nuances of gender-inclusive circumcision rituals, citing various case studies in our reflection on the four points Shweder proposes for legitimising female circumcision.
Background
Debates about female circumcision (FC), female genital cutting (FGC) or female genital mutilation (FGM) often raise the question: ‘What about male circumcision?’ While opponents to FGM argue that the practice is debilitating to women’s and girls’ health and sexual well-being, and is an infringement of their right to bodily integrity, their critics point to the inherent hypocrisy of these views in comparison with attitudes towards male circumcision (Abu-Sahlieh, 1995; Dekkers et al, 2004; Shweder, 2013; Earp, 2014; 2015; 2016). Shweder and other scholars have argued for decades that FC is always practised in parallel with male circumcision, that the harmful health and sexual effects have been exaggerated, and that the practice is controlled and managed by women (PPAN, 2012). As he points out in his target article regarding the Dawoodi Bohra, supporters see the practice positively, as an aesthetic enhancement, as an improvement in hygiene and sexual experience, and as promoting gender equality. Shell-Duncan (2022) also points out the criticism of double standards in the global silence over so-called female genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS), performed mainly by affluent, educated, white women and adolescent girls in Western countries. In this reply article, we examine the critical significance of circumcision in creating gender, specifically, the heterosexual categories of wife and husband that are responsible for the reproduction and military defence of descent groups. Thus, we use the concepts of female/male, girl/boy and woman/man cautiously and self-consciously, distinguishing these terminologies from local Kenyan understandings of an uncircumcised androgynous child versus a circumcised wife or husband (see later).
Contesting the prohibition of female genital mutilation act by Dr Tatu Kamau, public health specialist
On 18 July 2017, to the great consternation of many people at home and abroad, I filed a constitutional petition in the High Court of Kenya at Machakos, challenging the constitutionality of the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2011 (FGM Act). As a physician who worked for many years with the Ministry of Health, I cared for hundreds of female patients from different ethnic groups and had experience with the whole spectrum of FC, from World Health Organization (WHO) FGM/FC Types I to III. It was actually when I worked in a rural setting with literally 90 per cent Type III prevalence in 1994 that I woke up to the reality of the blatant distortion of facts about FC. Prior to that, I had only had experience with Types I and II, and I noticed that there were discrepancies between FGM ‘facts’ and the ‘reality on the ground’. I had thought that perhaps the FGM ‘facts’ were referring to the Type III group, but when I was posted to a maternity unit in a predominantly Type III FGM community in 1994, I realised that the FGM ‘facts’ were just hype, drama and racism.
I was surprised that during my years of practice, I rarely encountered patients who suffered long-term negative physical or health effects of FC or complained of sexual problems in relation to FC. My clinical observations seemed to go against everything I had been taught as a medical student and in subsequent professional trainings as a doctor in mainly rural areas. I was becoming very concerned at seeing news headlines where adult women were being separated from their families, especially young children; sometimes, they were arrested and sent to prison for choosing, as adults, to undergo their traditional coming-of-age/initiation ceremonies that involve relatively mild forms of FC. I was stunned that a few of my colleagues, other medical professionals, were performing these procedures for educated, affluent women at nearby hospitals. Most importantly, I became worried that uncircumcised women from any of our circumcising communities were being harassed for changing their minds and seeking out the operation.
The petition I submitted named as defendants the Honorable Attorney General, the Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board and the Director of Public Prosecution as the first, second and third respondents, respectively. The specific sections of the FGM Act that I emphasised were 5, 19, 20 and 21, and the provisions I highlighted were Articles 19, 27, 32 and 44 of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya.
‘Female Genital Mutilation’ comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs, or any harmful procedure to the female genitalia, for non-medical reasons, and includes–
clitoridectomy, which is the partial or total removal of the clitoris or the prepuce;
excision, which is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora;
infibulation, which is the narrowing of the vaginal orifice with the creation of a covering seal by cutting and appositioning the labia minora or the labia majora, with or without excision of the clitoris,
but does not include a sexual reassignment procedure or a medical procedure that has a genuine therapeutic purpose. (Emphasis added)
As the petitioner, I sought the following reliefs, namely:
a declaration that the legislature contravened the provisions of Articles 19, 27, 32 and 44 of the Constitution in enacting the FGM Act;
a declaration that the FGM Act is unconstitutional and thus invalid;
a declaration that the numerous provisions of the FGM Act that violate the Constitution cumulatively render the entirety of the FGM Act untenable and therefore constitutionally invalid ab initio;
a declaration that the Second Respondent (the Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board), purportedly established by this FGM Act, is illegal, as it was created without the authority of the law;
any other relief that the court deems fit and just to grant; and
costs of the suit.
My main argument against the FGM Act of Kenya was that this legislation, by encroaching on the rights of Kenyan women to practise and enjoy their culture, breached key provisions within the Kenyan Constitution of 2010. In my view, a cultural practice such as FC should not be prohibited or abolished. I argued that adult women and adult men have the right to equal opportunities in cultural and social spheres, and that the traditional practice of FC was being misrepresented as malicious, violent and intended to incapacitate and destroy females.
Additionally, I argued that the Kenyan Constitution expressly prohibits compelling anyone to engage in any act that is contrary to the person’s belief or religion. I interpreted this to mean that it was unconstitutional for the FGM Act to force adult women to abandon circumcision, which would be contrary to their belief (see later).
I also contended that the FGM Act discriminates against females: while both female and male circumcisions in Kenya are primarily conducted for cultural reasons, men have access to the highest standard of healthcare for their circumcisions but health workers are prohibited from providing services to women wishing to be circumcised. In this regard, the FGM Act absurdly prevents women from accessing quality health services and then blames them for risking their lives. This asymmetry in the law is all the more questionable considering that during circumcision, both males and females run the same immediate surgical risks of uncontrolled bleeding, shock and sepsis yet males are privileged to have these risks mitigated but females are not. Finally, I pointed out that Kenya has international obligations for the empowerment of women, a laudable goal that is achieved by increasing women’s agency and autonomy, not by increasing government control over their lives.
Cultural rights are human rights and are constitutionally protected in the Bill of Rights in Kenya
Article 19 of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya stipulates the following:
- (1)The Bill of Rights is an integral part of Kenya’s democratic state and is the framework for social, economic and cultural policies.
- (2)The purpose of recognizing and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms is to preserve the dignity of individuals and communities and to promote social justice and the realization of the potential of all human beings.
- (3)The rights and fundamental freedoms in the Bill of Rights
- a)belong to each individual and are not granted by the State,
- b)do not exclude other rights and fundamental freedoms not in the Bill of Rights, but recognized or conferred by law, except to the extent that they are inconsistent with this Chapter; and
- c)Are subject only to the limitations contemplated in this Constitution.
Article 27 of the Constitution provides as follows:
- (1)Every person is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law.
- (2)Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and fundamental freedoms.
- (3)Women and men have the right to equal treatment, including the right to equal opportunities in political, economic, cultural and social spheres.
- (4)The State shall not discriminate directly or indirectly against any person on any ground, including race, sex, pregnancy, marital status, health status, ethnic or social origin, color, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress, language or birth.
Article 32 of the Constitution grants every person in Kenya the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion.
Article 44 of the Constitution provides as follows:
- (1)Every person has the right to use the language, and to participate in the cultural life, of the person’s choice.
- (2)A person belonging to a cultural or linguistic community has the right, with other members of that community–
- a)to enjoy the person’s culture and use the person’s language; or
- b)to form, join and maintain cultural and linguistic associations and other organs of civil society.
- (3)A person shall not compel another person to perform, observe or undergo any cultural practice or rite.
The final ruling of the court
[T]he term ‘female genital mutilation’ is the internationally accepted term to refer to all procedures that involve the alteration, removal and/or damage of healthy female genital tissue for non-medical reasons. He further stated that the term ‘mutilation’ as used with reference to FGM/C [female genital mutilation/cutting] has further been adopted by the United Nations and related agencies dealing with FGM/C in order to provide for a distinction between the practice of FGM/C and male circumcision, thereby avoiding the confusion created by use of the same terminology. That the term ‘mutilation’ signifies and reinforces the point of difference between the two practices and helps promote national and international advocacy towards its abandonment. (#127 of the 2019 Kenya High Court Judgment)
The High Court further decided that adult women, because of societal pressure and so-called ‘patriarchal social structures’, do not have the agency or autonomy to make decisions about FC and, importantly, do not have the right to bring harm to their own bodies: ‘We thus find, that despite the rights enshrined in Articles 11, 32 and 44 of the Constitution relating to culture, religion, beliefs and language, the rights can be limited due to the nature of the harm resulting from FGM/C to the individual’s health and well-being’ (#153 of the 2019 Kenya High Court Judgment).
Many of the respondents’ briefs and related amicus briefs submitted centred around the fantasy of FGM’s sexual and social oppression of women as a requirement or feature of women’s subordination in marriage. As Ahmadu demonstrates later, circumcision as a prerequisite for marriage is incumbent on both females and males. It is the symbolic act by which heterosexual beings, both wives and husbands, are constituted for the purpose of marriage, where the individual wife and husband perform as mere conduits for the mutual alliance of two lineages: the matrilineage and patrilineage.
An anthropological perspective by Fuambai Sia Ahmadu
As a Sierra Leonean/American anthropologist whose academic work and advocacy has focused on FC in sub-Sahara Africa and, more recently, among Dawoodi Bohra and other South Asian/Melanesian women, my effort in this section is to tease out the role of culture (or, rather, assumptions about culture) in the High Court’s ruling in favour of upholding the FGM Act. The judges argued along two main lines: first, that culture is protected by the Constitution; but, second, that FC is ‘harmful’ to women, and therefore the criminalisation of this cultural practice is not unconstitutional. In this section, I consider the court ruling within the framework of Shweder’s four points, discussed earlier.
Broad support for FC
The High Court ruled that FC is an ‘entrenched’ and ‘harmful’ cultural practice that women cannot freely choose because society does not offer them a ‘real’ choice. The judges referenced several of the witnesses called by the defence, who testified that they had been forced to undergo FGM, had been permanently and brutally damaged, or had to flee from their communities for fear of becoming victims of FGM. These individual cases notwithstanding, the fact that FC is broadly supported by practising communities in Kenya is widely known and reported by the WHO, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) and the government of Kenya (Hodzic, 2016; Longman and Bradley, 2015). The challenge for scholars, activists and policymakers who wrongly assume that FC is necessarily harmful or synonymous with ‘mutilation’ is to proffer a reasonable explanation as to why the practice is celebrated, managed and perpetuated by women in the first place. Women who support and freely choose circumcision (this author included) are quite clear about the aesthetic, hygiene and overall health benefits they perceive (Ahmadu, 2001; 2007; 2017). Aside from these mostly subjective experiences, supporters of FC invariably point to the cultural and social value of initiation/circumcision relative to their role and status as ‘women’, or, more precisely, as wives and mothers in their societies: ‘Female circumcision … is a traditional practice that incorporates bodily inscription as signifier in girls’ maturation into adult womanhood’ (Esho et al, 2011).
While the Maasai have a patriarchal structure … women do play an important role in social production. This also includes the production of masculinity through taking part in various ritual and religious ceremonies involved in transitory moments…. In addition, it is through women that the transition of boys into men is made possible, through the constant change in configuration of men’s relationships with women and of men with each other…. Women as mothers and wives support elderly men in the process of age-set rituals, which mark the life stage transitions of boys to men and then to elders…. Mothers occupy a central role in determining whether boys have reached the age to undergo initiation and also in deciding when and whom their boys will marry eventually. It is on the basis of these decisions that young men might be allowed to become community leaders. Clearly, for Maasai women, FGC grants them an opportunity to acquire a status that enables them to influence society in both private and public domains. (Esho et al, 2011: 64, emphasis added)
In the next section, I wish to unravel a crucial nuance to understanding the differences between the archetypical Western sex and gender binary and Nilotic/Mande principles of heterosexual marriage. I refine the argument that FC is a signifier of physical maturation of females from girlhood to womanhood in order to suggest that this practice represents the social (some would say, divine) creation of wife, the vehicle of matriarchy or mutterecht, which I define as the feminine body’s capacity, legal right and ancestral authority to reproduce lineages and, importantly, the moral and affective maternal bloodline through generations.
FC and marriageability
For the regions where FGM originated, scholars have proposed three functions for this practice. The first draws from the theories behind the ‘marriageability’ of a woman, emphasizing the ideologies of ‘virginity, purity, and sexual restraint’ that are upheld in the societies where FGM is practiced. By reducing (or increasing, depending on the cultural group) sexual pleasure, the procedure protects young girl’s and women’s ‘sexual propriety’ and ‘morality,’ ‘demonstrating the obedience and respect required for marriageability.’ (Ross et al, 2016)
This quote is a typical Western feminist ‘universal subordination of women’ representation of FGM that, in my view, completely misunderstands the powerful meaning of circumcision to the creation of matriarchal and patriarchal socio-political structures of practising societies. To fully grasp the meaning, power and persistence of traditional circumcision requires a conscious movement away from Western sex and gender models, pathologically obsessive misconceptions about the clitoris and female sexual function, and Western notions, experiences and changing legal structures around marriage.
In other words. we must begin by separating the fundamental concept and purpose of marriage in circumcising communities from human sexual relations or practices and erotic pleasure per se. Notions of ‘virginity, purity and sexual restraint’ are non-existent in many traditional circumcising societies, such as the Kono, and are more linked with moral values associated with Abrahamic religious traditions, where male circumcision is symbolic of the production and reproduction of patriarchy, patrilineages and the creation or revelation of God as the Father. It is within this context that marriage concerns men’s control over the sexuality of wives in order to create biological sons for their husbands, who, as the blood heirs and descendants of their husbands, make these men biological fathers or patriarchs. This – the creation of Abraham’s divine patrilineal descendants through his paternal half-sister, Sarah – I argue, is the symbolic significance of Abrahamic male circumcision. Either way, the control over female sexuality or female sexual response is not and has never been the purpose of African traditional circumcision.
Indeed, African circumcision (which pre-dates Abrahamic circumcision), whether female or male, has everything to do with marriageability – not between individuals as such, but between descent groups or lineages. As I mentioned earlier, circumcision is the physical/symbolic act that creates wife and husband, but I want to take this a step further and suggest that this wife and husband are not so much individual beings, but represent the complementary sexual appendages of the larger, corporate body of a descent group or lineage. What do I mean by this?
In a patrilineal society with which this essay deals … reciprocity exhibits itself in alliances between men which depend on the exchange of women…. Women then are not only central in exchange and alliance, but they also determine the kinds of exchange that can be made and therefore what alliances can be formed. (Donaldson, 1981: 79)
In Kris Hardin’s (1995) ethnography on the Kono of Eastern Sierra Leone, she describes how one descent group, let us call this A, decides it wants to enter a mutual alliance with another descent group, B, and does so in the form of a ‘marriage’: descent group A is the wife-receiving ‘husband’ (protector) of the members of descent group B, which, as the wife giver, becomes the ‘wife’ (reproducer) of the members of decent group A.
In the courtship process, the wife-seeking descent group A performs the role of a groom vis-a-vis the wife-offering descent group B, which performs the role of a bride; the ceremony that affirms this transaction or exchange is what constitutes the formal marriage ritual (usually involving the symbolic exchange of kola nuts) between the two descent groups or lineages. Again, the wife-receiving descent group A becomes the ‘husband’ of the wife-giving descent group B, with a duty to defend, protect and always come to the aid of its ‘wife’. The wife-giving lineage, in turn, gives birth to and nurtures the legal members or heirs of the wife-receiving lineage, thus reproducing its husband’s descent group. From the perspective of the next generation of heirs, the mother’s descent group is its matrilineage or maternal line (baindenmoe), represented by the mother’s brother, and will look out for their welfare throughout their lives. The father’s descent group, which legally owns its members, is the patrilineage or paternal line (fadenmoe), represented by the father, his brothers and, technically, his sisters as well. This is where the children derive their legal and social status, rights, and inheritance. So, while the patrilineage (the husband or wife-receiving lineage in marriage) has legal authority over the next generation, the matrilineage (or wife-giving lineage in marriage) represents the moral and affective relationships and identity of the next generation.
Thus, circumcision inscribes on an individual the role or function that its descent group will perform, either as a wife or a husband, in a future alliance with another descent group. To put it graphically (and local kinship/affinal terminology is often quite graphic), if a child is born with a vagina, then it is reasonably assumed that that child will have childbearing capacity and can give birth to the children of another descent group. A particular type of circumcision, excision, signifies the transformation of this androgynous child into the role and status of ‘wife’, or, crudely, the ‘vagina’ of the descent group that will be given in marriage to the wife-seeking descent group. Excision is a potent symbol of the wife’s eschewal of masculinity (Ahmadu, 2016). If a child is born with a penis (and without an obvious, penetrable vagina), then it is reasonably assumed that that child will lack childbearing or reproductive capacity. Circumcision of the penis signifies the transformation of that child into the role or status of ‘husband’, the warrior/hunter of its descent group that will protect the wife-giving descent group. Here, circumcision represents the eschewal of femininity, as well as the inability to reproduce or represent his maternal line vis-a-vis his biological children. Thus, female and male circumcision both serve as ritual bodily markers that signify wife or husband, the two roles individuals will represent in the ‘marriage’ of their descent groups and the reproduction/protection of these lineages through time and space.
By contrast, in Western societies with primarily individually focused, nuclear family legal structures, a wife (likewise, a husband) is ‘created’ in the moment and as a consequence of a heterosexual marriage ceremony and is handed a marriage certificate. Among the Maasai, for example, this marriage certificate would function similar to ‘circumcision’, in that it legitimises the wife’s biological children as the offspring and legal heirs of her husband. The children belong simultaneously to the individual wife and individual husband and may or may not legally inherit their assets or wealth – the latter depends on what the parents decide, or, if they make no decision, what the state says the children are legally entitled to through intestacy.
In practising African societies, it is initiation/circumcision that ‘creates’ a wife and husband, who themselves belong to descent groups and are merely the genital appendages or weapons of warfare, respectively, by which their lineages ‘marry’ or come into alliance, have ‘sexual intercourse’, ‘conceive’, and ‘give birth’ to descendants. Here, I hypothesise that while decent groups or lineages and clans are still important to the social structure, and are sources of affective and legal identity, female and male circumcision will continue to play a key role as a signifier of heterosexual marriage, of wife and husband, and of the (dis)embodied identities of reproduction and hunting/warfare that make up the symbolic building blocks of social organisation.
The Gikuyu exception
The most significant exception to this general rule of FC’s broad support in Kenya is the politically and economically dominant Kikuyu or Gikuyu ethnic group (Ahmadu, forthcoming). As Shell-Duncan (2022) points out in her article, Kenya has seen perhaps Africa’s greatest decline in actual FC prevalence and support for the practice. However, this rapid decline has mostly affected the Gikuyu. Shell-Duncan explains that such ethnic groups as most of the Maa-speaking pastoralists, who almost universally uphold FC (Kenyatta, 1979), have experienced dramatic economic and political marginalisation through colonial and post-colonial policies, as well as climate change, and that they lag behind in education generally and specifically with regard to girls.
While these factors are important in constraining the choices of many Kenyans – women and men alike – there are additional issues that affect the decision making or motivations that maintain FC. The Kenya ‘success’ that is claimed by anti-FGM activists is largely due to the dominant Gikuyu ethnic group. This rapid generational decline can be attributed in no small part to changing experiences and notions of identity, especially the influence of Westernisation or ‘Americanisation’, which some Nairobi-based Kenyans describe in terms of a conscious modelling of modernity seen through and shaped by the lens of US mainstream and social media. This new, ‘modern’ sense of being is no doubt related to digital-age ideals of economic progress, cosmopolitanism and a received human rights agenda that reinforces individualism over ties to family, community and traditional social structures. Thus, Gikuyu rejection of FC coincides with their adoption of ideals of Americanisation and the popularisation of a specific human rights framework, which that are both viewed as keys to economic prosperity and modern personhood (Ahmadu, forthcoming). For the minority ethnic groups, who are for the most part economically and politically disadvantaged, FC remains: an integral part of their cultural and ethnic identities; a daily, albeit changing, way of life; and, significantly, a vital part of social organisation and patrilineal clan structures (Kratz, 2010; Esho et al, 2011).
Language is key
For (most of) the Maasai women in our study this meant that they perceived of their circumcision not as an impediment to, but as a precondition to becoming female, sexualized beings…. For these informants, circumcision is a woman’s right. As well as articulating Maasai belonging and identity, it also inscribes moral virtue, femininity (as opposed to masculinity) and womanhood (as opposed to girlhood). (Esho, 2013: 21)
Nearly 20 years ago, I argued that the meaning of female and male circumcision, and its links with social structure, can be inferred through a proper analysis of local language use (as well as structural comparisons with creation myths and initiation rituals). In fact, I believe that many feminists and human rights scholars, even anthropologists, wrongly associate FC with the oppression of women and control of female sexuality simply because they ignore or fail to understand local sex, gender and kinship terminologies, and their uses or deployments across various domains of experience.
Anthropology has historically struggled with issues of translation. While many scholars have noted the politically charged and emotive dynamics of terminology as it relates to female genital alterations, very few, if any, meaningfully discuss the general incommensurability of English or other European languages (the usual medium of scholarly or other public discourse in most academic disciplines) with the spoken languages of non-Euromerican women who are affected by these varied bodily practices. In the past, both feminist anthropologists and anthropologists of gender have grappled with the basic meaning of the term ‘woman’ and whether this terminology has any cross-cultural or universal significance. It is obvious today that even within Western societies, where a common language, such as English, is spoken, there is no agreement on what it is or means to be a ‘woman’.
The problem of translating gender terminologies in cross-cultural conversations about FC, FGC or FGM that are conducted in English or other languages of European origin cannot be understated considering important subtleties in meaning that have great moral significance, depending upon one’s side in the debate. To most English or European speakers and millions around the world who receive Western education, a ‘female’ refers to a specific, identifiable, biological sex, which is perceived as given or discernible at birth; the term ‘girl’ refers to a prepubescent female and ‘woman’ refers to a post-pubescent female. Psychoanalytic theory continues to influence accepted beliefs about the internal processes through which individuals come to identify as women and men within a predominantly heteronormative social context.
However, the underlying concepts of terms such as female, girl and woman are not neatly or readily translatable into the languages of Africans who practise circumcision or initiation. Many of these languages do not have gendered pronouns or overarching words that presuppose the ‘natural’ embodied existence of separate and complementarily sexed beings. In fact, in the African societies that practise circumcision, it is the human act of circumcision that creates or transforms an androgynous child into either one of a socioculturally constructed heterosexual pair, a wife or a husband, depending on the appearance of the external genitalia at birth, specifically, the presence or absence of a penetrable vagina, which is a sign or indicator of childbearing and childbirth capacity. To be designated a wife or a husband is merely to be assigned as the external vehicle (wife) or weapon (husband), respectively, for the life-giving (read: reproductive) and life-taking (read: protective) functions of the lineages or clans that make up society.
Following the example of local informants who are forced to translate their languages into English, many anthropologists interchange the terms ‘woman’ and ‘wife’, as well as ‘man’ and ‘husband’. This matters little to unrelated theoretical constructs that may be of interest to scholars. However, in theorising about the meaning, experience and broad support of circumcision, these nuances matter greatly, explaining in large part why it is that affected women see their own experiences very differently from outsiders or scholars from non-practising societies.
Motivated by gender equality
Another example of a patriarchal social structure that appears to empower women is that of the Turkana in the North-Western province of Kenya. In that society it is through rituals that women are positioned favourably in terms of property and power relations, both socially and structurally…. These rituals also are crucial in the construction of their social system…. These examples emphasize the importance of the role of women in a society that is traditionally male dominated. It is ironic that in those societies the power men acquire can only be achieved through the relationships with their mothers, wives, or other women in the community. Such a patriarchal structure thus appears to serve the interests of everyone in society. Hence, it is through these kinds of social structures, where both men and women participate in the formation of identity, gender, and norms of sexuality, that the continuation and maintenance of culture is ensured. (Esho et al, 2011: 64–5)
As I discussed in the previous section, female (and male) circumcision in Kenya among ethnic groups that uphold these gender-inclusive rituals has everything to do with the construction and perpetuation of a social system in which women are valued equally with men ‘in terms of property and power relations, both socially and structurally’. Thus, without a doubt, FC is motivated by gender equality. In this section, I briefly compare and discuss informants’ biblical views that point to circumcision as the divine creation of wife and husband, as well as the ruling patrilineage.
As Shweder, Shell-Duncan and Rogers allude to in this volume, supporters of FC point to the gender inclusivity of circumcision, whether the practice is rooted in Abrahamic religion or in pre-Abrahamic Nilotic and Mande societies. For practitioners of FC who uphold Islam or Christianity, the Old Testament (in particular, Genesis 17) is a key reference. According to Shweder, who cites the work of Zimran Samuel (2019), Dawoodi Bohra women view and experience FC, or khatna (a nick or partial removal of the clitoral hood that covers the glans), as an important covenant with God, equal to that of male circumcision, which allows females to partake in a holy relationship with their Creator. Likewise, the community elder (who testified in the FGM case on behalf of his Nandi community), referred to Genesis 17, stating that God’s command to Abraham was also intended for females.
As I demonstrated in the previous section, for the ethnic groups in Kenya that practise female and male circumcision (and perhaps for most, if not all, practitioners of circumcision [Ahmadu, forthcoming]), the significance of the procedure is not only that it is required of both sexes (‘female’ and ‘male’) or both genders (‘woman’ and ‘man’), but that it sexes the human body and the social body (descent group), which are viewed as made up of both ‘male’ and ‘female’ parts, and that it genders the person and descent group into either wife or husband, depending on the presence or absence of internal childbearing and reproductive capacity. I would even go so far as to argue that circumcision’s purpose of inscribing wife or husband within both the human body and the social body extends to the Abrahamic context. As I describe in a recent article (Ahmadu, forthcoming), many of my informants in West and East Africa pointed to God’s creation of Adam and Eve as the primordial circumcision or physical operation that created husband and wife through the removal of the ‘female’ element within the ‘male’, leaving childbirth solely to the female. Further, they point out that the Bible states, ‘for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and join with his wife’(Genesis 2:24) – given that God formed Adam from the earth, the earth represents Adam’s mother while God himself represents Adam’s heavenly father.
In Genesis, Eve, as wife, is assigned the capacity to bear children, while Adam was instructed to work the land. In Genesis 17, God creates divine patrilineal descent groups through his blood covenant with Abraham, commanding the latter to circumcise himself and all the ‘males’ of his household, including Ishmael, son of Hagar, the Egyptian handmaiden. Thus, where, at the beginning, Eve (who, by definition, is the circumcised wife of Adam) is given the power to birth human life ‘naturally’, later on, Abraham is given the authority to circumcise, which also means the capacity to give birth through the shedding of God’s own blood and to reproduce patrilineal descent groups. However, it is still Abraham’s wife and ‘concubine’, Sarah and Hagar (Hagar, as an Egyptian, would have already been circumcised), who are bestowed with the natural or physical capacity to reproduce the biological sons who would become the father of lineages descended from Abraham. Thus, in biblical as in Nilotic/Mande creation mythology (Ahmadu, 2016), the ‘natural’ procreative power of ‘females’ is given by God in the form of childbirth; the power to give birth to descent groups is given to ‘males’ through circumcision.
[Women] argue, instead, that the ritual’s perpetuation in the present has less to do with any male desire to superintend over societal matters pertaining to femininity, feminine identity and the status of women in society, but rather signifies women’s own aspiration to carve out a niche within society by directly negotiating the cultural and social parameters upon which their daily life-worlds are mediated. Participation in the FGC maturation ritual is one avenue where women are able to achieve this aspiration…. This is a privilege they share with their male counterparts, for whom participation in the male circumcision ritual is, likewise, mandatory. In the same breath, the male rite provides the symbolic basis upon which male identities and social standing are instituted and established. Therefore, eradication would undermine the basis for negotiating a favourable position in society for those it claims to protect. (Esho et al, 2011: 216)
Less physically invasive (than male circumcision)
It is now widely known among most scholars writing about FC among the Dawoodi Bohra that the most common type of procedure practised by women in this community fits into the WHO categories of FGM/FC Type Ia or Type IV (see Shell-Duncan, this volume; Shweder, this volume). This involves a small nick to the clitoral hood or prepuce that covers the glans but leaves the entire exposed glans and clitoral structure intact. For practising ethnic groups in Kenya, the most common form falls within Type Ia and Type Ib, and Type IIa and Type IIb, with Type IIIa and Type IIIb being more prevalent among women in minority Somali communities (co-author, Dr. Tatu Kamau, personal clinical observations). For this reason, it would be reasonable to argue that these forms of FC are not really comparable with male circumcision since they involve either more invasive and aesthetically altering practices, with the removal of external skin and tissue (such as the protruding clitoral glans and labia minora), or, in the case of infibulation, the suturing or sealing of the labia. As most FC practices in Kenya seem more invasive than male circumcision, we believe that consent should be obtained by affected adult women or adolescents who have reached the age of majority.
Scant evidence of harm
[O]ne good reason for separating the harmful practice claim from the violation of basic human rights is that those who want to eradicate the practice want to eradicate it even if the genital surgeries already are, or could be made to be, medically safe. They think it is wrong for Africans to modify female genitals (although not male genitals), and it is wrong, many advocates argue, even if the body modification can be done hygienically, with anesthesia and with no effect on sexual functioning. In other words, the human rights advocacy groups are not really interested in making the world safe for these types of medical procedures. Their goal is to eradicate the practice, whether it is medically harmful or not. (Hernlund and Shell-Duncan, 2007: 23)
Further, in his target piece, Shweder argues that there is no evidence of gynaecological, obstetrical or sexual harm in the Bohra practice of khatna in comparison with women who have not undergone any form of genital procedures. However, what is the evidence of these types of harm in more altering or invasive FC procedures that fall within Types II and III? Once again, as Shweder and other scholars have shown, the scant medical evidence on the relative harm of even Type II and III practices is unconvincing at best, with the more reliable studies suggesting that there is very little difference between circumcised women and women who have not received any form of genital procedures residing in similar environments or having equal access to quality healthcare (PPAN, 2012).
While some studies on sexuality affirm that circumcised women experience sexual desire, pleasure and fantasy equal to and in some instances greater than uncut women (Catania et al, 2007), other studies insist that women who are cut experience more problems with sexual function than those who are uncut (Esho et al, 2017). The issue I have with these studies that claim to measure the sexual satisfaction of circumcised women as compared with uncircumcised women is that they are highly subjective and subject to the researchers’ own bias, and therefore wholly unreliable (Ahmadu, 2007). What does satisfaction mean for individual women? How do researchers objectively measure what a woman is feeling during sex, whether she has much or little lubrication, and different types of orgasms or no orgasm? How, pray tell, do medical doctors quantify desire? How do outside scholars (either directly or through local interlocutors) convincingly dissociate from their own bodily experiences and triggers of orgasm or knowledge of what feels good or pleasurable to them in order to imagine how another woman feels or what works for another woman’s body (Ahmadu, 2007)?
Moreover, what is the influence of negative messages about FGM to which women and their husbands are bombarded in mainstream and social media? What about the pressure scholars and development workers are under to produce the needed quantitative and qualitative data that are required by United Nations (UN) organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to justify funding for anti-FGM policies and programmes, or, in the case of young researchers, to receive funding to do fieldwork and opportunities to publish in academic journals? In over 30 years of experience, I have encountered enough of such duplicitous politics to remain highly sceptical about the impartiality and validity of ‘evidence’ which somehow shows that cut women enjoy sex less than uncut women. Since much of the evidence regarding harm has to do with subjective experience and, frequently, anecdotal references (for example, even during the 2021 Kenyan trial, much weight was given to the testimonies of the ‘victims’ of FGM), not medical or scientific studies, it is hard to argue with Shweder: ‘Their goal is to eradicate the practice, whether it is medically harmful or not.’
Conclusion: what are the prospects for change in the FMG act: sexual reassignment surgery
Shweder has rightly questioned the hypocrisy of critics of Dawoodi Bohra women’s practice of khatna given that the Bohra also circumcise boys. However, the same bias is evident in other legally acceptable genital surgeries, such as FGCS (see Shell-Duncan, this volume) and intersex surgery (Earp et al, 2021). However, to our knowledge, there is no research that questions cultural, racial and gender biases as they relate to the promulgation of sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) as a treatment for ‘gender dysphoria’ (Ahmadu, forthcoming). When we compare FC (which is defined by the High Court as FGM) with SRS (which is explicitly mentioned and exempted from the FGM Act), certain questions come to mind: why would the authors of the FGM Act want to bar an adult Kenyan woman from modifying her vulva through a relatively minor partial or complete excision of the protruding clitoral glans/foreskin while legally protecting the same woman if she wanted to perform a more radical and invasive surgery on her vulva to recreate a penis? The High Court also questioned this logic of excluding SRS, as well as FGCS and Type IV procedures.
This is particularly perplexing when considering cross-cultural differences in how various societies determine sex and gender. Would it make any difference in the minds of FGM opponents that a Maasai, Marakwet, Sabiny or Kiisi woman, for instance, would view her circumcision and initiation as a form of transitioning from a state of protosocial intersexuality to a wife, with the full, legal and ancestral authority to reproduce her maternal or matriarchal line, her husband’s patrilineage, and the descent group of her future children (Ahmadu, forthcoming)?
Perhaps understanding transgender surgeries and the idea that bodies are ‘assigned’ a sex (at birth or other stages of development, depending on the cultures or societies in question) is a promising prospect. In our view, the idea that bodies are not automatically sexed into male and female categories, and that both sex and gender are fluid within and across cultures, should open up the possibility of engaging with circumcision as a physical and symbolic act that constructs sex and gender among practising societies or religious communities. Among circumcising groups in Kenya, the procedure is necessarily gender inclusive and equal; it is performed to create, assign and align wife and husband, the only two sex/gender categories that matter to the lives and social organisation of practitioners. So, why not allow all adults the right to consent to whatever genital surgery procedure they choose that conforms with or represents their desired sex, gender or ideals of marriage by that choice?
SRS, like circumcision, is similarly a symbolic act (albeit savvily packaged as a modern, biomedical intervention to treat a disorder – gender dysphoria), imbued with social meanings and assumptions about sex and gender binaries in Western societies. The FGM Act wrongly presumes that this sex–gender binary is universal. The point is not that SRS too should be banned by the FGM Act or any other legislation, but that certain forms of FC, like SRS, FGCS or any type of invasive genital reshaping practices ought to be freely decided and accessed by a consenting adult in accordance with her, his or ‘their’ cultural or socio-religious beliefs or internal psychological experiences. FC (such as khatna or WHO Types I and IV), like male circumcision or other relatively minor procedures, should remain a parental decision.
In our separate but interrelated efforts to support the cause of marginalised African and Muslim women to uphold and enjoy their cultural beliefs and bodily practices, we have witnessed the wanton persecution of circumcised women in our countries of origin in Kenya (Dr Kamau) and in Sierra Leone (Dr Ahmadu). These persecutions have taken the form of public disgrace, arrests, convictions and incarcerations for their advocacy of the very self-determination and equality enjoyed by their persecutors. Laws criminalising FC ensure that affected women do not have the same bodily autonomy that is enjoyed by men, by women who desire and can afford so-called ‘female genital cosmetic surgeries’, and by intersex or transgender adults who may want to choose one of the binary sex and gender categories of their societies. This is the same bodily autonomy that white, educated, liberal, middle-class American women zealously champion in their calls to arms against the increasing likelihood of an overturning of Roe vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court. Unfortunately, a few of these women – highly vocal, overly zealous and privileged feminists – have no qualms promulgating the denial of that very autonomy to African and Muslim women!
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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