Female Circumcision

Essay # 58433

Anthropology > African
Anthropology > Cultural
Gender and Sexuality

Female Circumcision

A discussion of the practice of female circumcision in African countries and how existing literature contains Western biases against the practice.

1,703 words () | 15 sources | APA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This report looks at existing literature portrayals of female circumcision in Africa. The findings of this report concern the ethical, moral, and medical rationalizing that prompt a bias in the existing literature against the practice of female circumcision from a number of different perspectives.

From the Paper:

"When discussing the subject of female circumcision in Africa, one must also be familiar with concepts and theories regarding culture. From one point of view, often called the cultural relativism point of view, cultures are viewed as being understood by their participants, and not necessarily by those outside of the specific cultural milieu, in this case
of traditional African societies. This point of view does not presuppose universal ethics from a perspective of influence on or interaction with the culture from policy directives. These policy directives can be seen in the case of female circumcision in Africa as the intervention of organizations, often worldwide organizations, which seek to delimit the cultural process of female circumcision from a predominantly western
cultural view, which finds the process abhorrent from an ethical and rights-based perspective. The effectiveness of this cultural imposition, however, is limited to the cultural relativist."