Culture is the main reason for female genital mutilation. Sadly, the cultures which practice fgm are oppressive against girls and women.

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I think culture is the main reason why FGM/C persists. People want to feel like they belong to a culture. For this reason I believe in some cases girls and women (who are old enough to understand that FGM/C is not just something happening to them, but to all their female relatives and friends) would even rather have FGM/C than not. To them the pain that comes with the procedure and the difficulties it causes later in life are better than refusing FGM/C (if this were possible) and being outcasts in their society. Along similar lines, the women who perform FGM/C know full-well the pain and trauma it can cause, as it has happened to them, but I think it is important to them to make sure the girls in the community become a part of the culture.
Because FGM/C is so entwined with culture, I think people working to eradicate FGM/C have to work closely with the leaders of communities which practice it. An outsider coming to a community to describe the medical problems FGM/C can cause will do nothing to reduce its prevalence. However, working together with community leaders to remove FGM/C from initiation ceremonies for young girls, for example, would probably be effective though difficult. If FGM/C could no longer be perceived as part of culture, I think its prevalence would decrease dramatically.

Culture plays a huge role! While FGM/C is more prevalent in Africa and with immigrant communities in Europe and North America, it isn’t like the culture in the United States is much more welcoming. Look at the Health Care Reform debate around family planning and access to abortion. Look at how women and girls are made to feel about their bodies and the self harm we are driven to inflict from cutting to bulimia. And on top of all of that, the challenge of changing and influencing culture feels overwhelming…

Culture,yes; religion, more so.

I’m not certain what the connection is to culture. But, I do have some thoughts on how to use cultural-based change approaches. I do agree with Leslie S and her posting where she said that outsiders coming in to support change need to partner with folks locally.

There is a model that might support this called “positive deviance.” In essence, it’s a social change model that looks for people in a system that are “deviating” from the norm in some “positive” way. It’s been used in hospitals to reduce HIV transition, in schools to reduce drop out rates, and even in Egypt to form 12 “FGM free” communities.

What I like about the approach is that it looks for people at the margins of a system that are already expressing beneficial or desired behaviors or actions (so in this case, it would be finding men and women, old and young, within communities where FGM is the norm, but are not participating in or resisting FGM). Using a positive deviance approach, you would seek to build a learning community (presumably with both indigenous leadership and other support groups like the UN).

It’s a strength-based approach (rather than a problem-based approach). For those who are familiar with it Appreciative Inquiry or Popular Education approaches, it’s similar in some ways. This positive deviance change process says, “hey, there are individuals within this community who face the same issues (resources, culture, etc.) as others, but they are doing something different.” You look to see what they are doing differently and find ways to support that.

Sometimes change processes focus just on those at the top (those who have positions of authority, access to resources, or formal leadership positions). It’s important to include them. It’s also important to include those who are marginalized. It’s those at the margins who are working with less and have come up with creative adjustments to get something done with less.

Three steps in Positive Deviance:
1) Define the problem or behavior
2) Look for someone who is doing the desired behavior (the positive deviants)
3) Focus on the behavior, not changing or creating new thinking on behavior

When to use a Positive Deviance approach:
- When a problem requires behavioral changes or social change
- When it’s a seemingly intractable problem
- When there is a presence of a positive deviant(s)
- When there is leadership and positive deviant champions

The process discovers ideas that are already out there. It enables people to act today. It creates culturally appropriate solutions.

The challenges are scaling up. It labor and time intensive. It requires comfort with uncertainty, and for practitioners to be facilitators instead of experts.

Positive Deviance comes from the research of Marian Zeitlin and then experimented with and further developed by Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin at Tufts University.

More information about this and other change processes at:
http://www.positivedeviance.org/about_pdi/history.html
http://patrickod-blog.tumblr.com/
http://www.potomacgroupllc.com/

It’s all about culture. It’s clear that this is not a religiously-based practice (at least as far as the major religions are concerned, unless male circumcission which is mandated in both Judaism and Islam and is so a part of the cultures those faiths are practiced in as not to raise an eyebrow, even when, in some regions, this circumcission is done at age 8 when the boy is very much aware of the pain and it must be emotionally traumatic as well). However, across religions, in specific geographic regions, different types of FGM are practiced.

How do you change it? The way that it is being tackled: have the conversation, have women share their experiences with it, the consequences they have had because of it. Culture is dynamic, not static. Challenges come to it from outside and within. What was entrenched as a practice can be modified or removed, if enough people see that it is better for all to change. However, change does not come easily, and in a context of rapid change (globalization, etc.), perhaps culture is the area that people feel the most like they can put their feet down and insist, “No, this is the way of our ancestors.”

For those religions where it is not mandated, perhaps there is religion-based language that can challenge the practice. Where it is an instrument of control and fear, perhaps addressing those issues is a way out.

It won’t be easy. Iindividual change is already not easy. Once change involves more than one individual, it becomes exponentially harder.

But change is not impossible. And that means there is hope.

I agree with Leslie about the outsider part – practices like these are grounded in deep beliefs that often outsiders are not able to understand, much less address. The best we can do from an outsider perspective is support people on the ground who are working to create health and safety for women and girls in their own communities.

I don’t know if FGM/C could/would exist without a cultural context. My impression is that, at least in Africa, FGM/C is often part of a rite of passage and carries all the cultural weight of any longstanding social norm. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t cases where folks are driven to retain the practice as a means of maintaining cultural identity in response to Westernization.

That said, I also think that the eradication of FGM/C is just as much based in culture. I know that there are several communities throughout the continent of Africa (The Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Kenya, Sudan, Somaliland, and Egypt) in which women who used to be cutters are leading alternative rites of passage processes. These countries also have programs led by women who have gone through the procedure and have since come to understand how many of their health problems are linked to FGM/C. I’m also pretty sure that there are now several villages where FGM/C had been practiced for generations but has been virtually eradicated over the last 15 years or so because of indigenous efforts to stop it. Of course, these are small scale efforts when compared to the breadth of the problem, but they give me hope anyway.

I think culture is the only reason FGM happens. There is too much fear out there to offend religions…so much fear that there is a little opposition to the procedure. People need to come out and talk about FGM in the community. But how can that happen with so much male domination in those societies. I know there is sexism everywhere, but no one should be forced to undergo such pain. Unfortunately most of these girls do not receive any anesthesia.

To answer your question, I think FGM is more of a cultural thing. We’ve heard stories of women that continue to practice this for no particular reason but just the fact that it was done to them.

From reading all the comments, I think people failed to distinguish between the different types of FGM.

I have heard from midwives from the UK that if women with FGM, the extreme form which is common among Somali women in the UK come to the hospital/clinic before hand that this can be untied.

I disagree with Linda “ sadly, the cultures which practice FGM are oppressive against girls and women”. I totally disagree with this statement, when we talk about oppression against girls and women this can be found anywhere in the world, the only difference is the degree and extent of oppression experienced by women in various places. You have to go back to history, most of the countries in sub-Saharan, women had power before the colonizers came, it was the colonizers that imported their own ideologies to this society. It is a shame that this has stayed despite the exodus of the colonizers. ( dont get me wrong here, also sub-Saharan Africa played a role)

We also have to look at the impact of western ideology, when the West says something is wrong then it wrong, regardless of whether its acceptable in other places. I guess my question is what if FGM was being practiced in the West; wouldn’t it have become the ideal thing?

FGM is ingrained in some cultures, if people are unwilling to change their ways, an approach is just to make it safer. Provide all the necessary medical instruments, medications etc that will help carry out a safe FGM, no one ever talks about this approach, trying to change people’s behavior isnt easy, when you are it when not try to save the innocent lives that still going tthrough and will continue to.

Let’s talk about the growing female genital cosmetic surgery, I don’t hear this being criticized by the public. “Broadly speaking, these surgeries may meet the World Health Organization’s criteria for female genital mutilation as “procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” This kind of cosmetic surgery can interfere with advocates’ ability to fight forced ritual mutilation in places like Africa, where the practice is still common, says Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of international women’s rights watchdog Equality Now. Designer vaginas “are considered reasons for not throwing stones, so to speak, at other cultures,” she says.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1859937,00.html?iid=tsmodule

I am in no way in favor of FGM, but I think when we talk about FGM our arguments are mostly one-sided.

I don’t understand the difference between culture and religion and think that labels are used for excuses to control the masses who can’t think for themselves.

I think that particularly in relation to issues like mutilation it is easy to get lost in outrage about the damage caused but first we must understand the reasons given for the practice and reason why it was started in the first place. WAs it degrade or to control? Or was it to honour or praise?

Only once we have understood why something happens can we start to educate those who practice it as why it is wrong and dangerous.

I don’t understand the difference between culture and religion and think that labels are used for excuses to control the masses who can’t think for themselves.

I think that particularly in relation to issues like mutilation it is easy to get lost in outrage about the damage caused but first we must understand the reasons given for the practice and reason why it was started in the first place. WAs it degrade or to control? Or was it to honour or praise?

Only once we have understood why something happens can we start to educate those who practice it as why it is wrong and dangerous

I am optimistic that change is possible, as cultural shifts have taken place in the last century around many relevant social issues. A very sensitive topic, and one where a frank dialogue is required to inspire change in this devastating practice.