Robert Clarke

Mrs. Barbara Hoffman

ANT 224 Sex, Gender, Culture
November 6, 2014
Bodies, Sex and Gender
The main argument of the article is attaining international acknowledgement
of male genital mutilation as a human rights violation. When inspecting many
different human rights treaties it shows that the act of circumcision itself is a
violation against many international treaties and agreements. The main concern
being that the majority of circumcisions that are being performed on baby male
children without their consent. That might sound ridiculous because babies cannot
give consent. This is a problem because no choice is given to the male babies on
whether or not they want to be circumcised. The fact that the freedom of choice is
stripped from these babies is a human rights violation. Essentially their freedom to
choose a freedom that is entitled to them at birth is taken away for reasons that
could be debated. Despite knowing this many multilateral and international human
rights agencies has not made any attempt to stop male genital mutilation. The
same however cannot be said for how female genital mutilation is viewed as a huge
injustice and human rights violation to the rest of the world. This is because the
biased towards circumcision of little girls is depicted as cruel and unusual in the
eyes of most of the world.
Some evidence that is provided within the article in support of the main
argument are very broad in explanations, but I chose a few in particular to support

the evidence provided. One piece of evidence that I chose was the huge
misinterpretation of male genital mutilation. This lead to the misperception of the
pain and damage that is actually caused by male genital mutilation. The article
states is that the damage from the male genital mutilation was generally much less
extreme versus that of female genital mutilation. This misconception of harm done
by male genital mutilation versus female genital mutilation is what prohibits most
female genital mutilation. When comparing the two, this is one of the reasons why
male genital mutilation is offset as not necessarily being a human rights violation.
This continues because of the false comparisons of the most extreme and
drastic forms of female genital mutilation, which is performed in unsanitary
conditions in the Africa by untrained practitioners. While in comparing the two, male
circumcisions were deemed a less complicated risk because it is just removal of
penile skin. For women it is much complicated containing multiple different types of
circumcisions as well as more precision cuts surrounding the lips and clitoris of the
vagina. This is one of the main reasons why male circumcision is not acknowledge
as a human rights violation because of the way that the operation is performed and
the level of complexity it encompasses.
Another piece of evidence on why male circumcision is not consider a
violation of human rights is because of the bias that males face with genital
mutilation. Evidence that was provided by the article is the fact that over ninety
percent (90%) of all genital mutilations and circumcisions performed world wide is
committed against males. That means that male circumcision is widely more
practiced and acknowledged as more of a social norm in society. The standard for
the majority of world is that males should or must be circumcised. With that kind of
mindset circumcision is performed on males it is seemed as a normal standard set

by society. While in retrospect most of society is against women circumcision.

Womens circumcision only takes up ten percent (10%) of the worlds genital
mutilations. That can be interpreted as in woman circumcision is not normal in most
society. When the act is performed on a women, the majority of society frown upon
it.
More evidence that the article presented the risk involved in female
circumcision was approximated to be about six times as worst and problematic than
male circumcisions. Besides the extra genital tissue with females the operation is
much more delicate than a males. A newborn male circumcision can take only a few
days or weeks to heal completely without any real complications. While with female
circumcision newborn or adult, the damage received from the circumcision can take
months at a time to heal. Even after months to sometimes years and the damage
can never truly heal. This can lead to numerous problems that can affect the female
throughout her lifetime. Examples of this could be urinary tract infections, kidney
failure, and complications during childbirth.
After reading all the evidence from within the article I came to the conclusion
about each piece of evidence presented to me. The first argument was the one
comparing the harm done by circumcision to males and females. In this argument it
was just assumed that male circumcision was less painful than a womens. I did not
agree with this because there is no exact way to measure the pain or scale the
harm done by gender. This mean that a male might say the pain was a 8 out of 10
while a female might of said the pain was a 9 out of 10. There is no way to justify
the pain is worst for female just because she said a higher number. The second
argument was the fact that almost ninety percent of the male population of the
world is circumcised. I agreed to this argument because I feel that because the rate

of circumcision for men is so high society does have a bias when it comes to male
circumcision. Most of society meaning male and female probably have a strong bias
that most men should be or have been circumcised. The third argument that was
discussed was the complications with each genders circumcision. I agreed to this
argument because women could develop complications that affects them their
entire life, as well as childbirth which is very concerning.
The contribution that this article makes to the understanding of gender is a
very informative one. It actually puts circumcision into a perspective I never realized
before. This article gives you insight as to why male genital mutilation is not
acknowledge as a human rights violation at the beginning. Also the article points
out more pressing matters that circumcision has on childbirth and individuals so you
can weigh in your opinion on whether or not it you agree to it. Finally it makes you
realize in the end that even though male to female circumcision is being compared
directly to each other it shows how different they are to each other and those
differences should not be ignored.