ANTH 3240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Female Genital Mutilation, Foreskin, Cultural Relativism
17 Apr 2016
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Women centric ritual performed by women on younger girls (can be as young as one day old to puberty) Sunna: removal of clitoral foreskin with the razor. Last one: all stitched up except the urine hole. Complications trauma, fear, infections, a lot of pain, childbirth issues, internal bleeding, and a lack of sexual pleasure afterwards. Anthropologists have linked it to right of passage, children becoming women". It is ritualized and it is symbolic to a cultural belief, primarily purpose to impose certain beliefs on individuals. One identity or status to another, childhood to women hood. Gordon says sometimes it doesn"t fit with puberty rights but it does signal that they have become a female. It also signals female isolation alters social status in many ways ( young girls cant go outside, cant play with boys, clothing , actions and chastity)
