My beef with the term "female circumcision"

Before we get this started, I wanted to clear a few things up. First and foremost, this blog entry isn't about male circumcision. Yes, I'll be bringing up male circumcision, but only as an (awful) anatomical analogy for female genital mutilation (FGM, from now on). I'm not going to expound on my views on male circumcision--I'll say up front that I'm an "intactivist" (and what a clever term that is!), but I'm not going to go in depth into why, because this entry isn't about male circumcision. By discussing the extreme bodily harm caused by FGM, I'm not in any way trying to diminish or erase the harm done to some by male circumcision--I know that it can result in a variety of complications, up to and including some reported cases of death. I also acknowledge that there are huge consent issues with cutting the genitals of a child of any gender.

I'm not trying to deny any of that because, as I've said, I'm not really talking about male circumcision. What I want to talk about is FGM, and why "female circumcision" is a dangerous misnomer. Be warned: there will probably be diagrams (a la health class), but I'll put them all as links so you can click through (or not) as you wish.

In the US, at the very least (and I'd hazard a guess to say that the same is true for most of the world), the word "circumcision", unqualified, immediately brings to mind male circumcision, the removal of (part of or all of) the foreskin from the penis. By labeling FGM as "female circumcision", we normalize the term and equate it with a common practice that is not nearly so drastic or damaging to sexual health as FGM is.

Calling FGM "female circumcision" makes the act seem strongly analogous to male circumcision, when on a purely anatomical level, it isn't. The clitoris and the penis are homologous structures, both developing from the genital tubercle of the embryo. It follows, then, that the clitoral hood (see this diagram) is homologous to the foreskin found in male genitalia. "Female circumcision" would therefore imply simply the cutting away of the clitoral hood, and in some variations, this is the case. However, this is rarely true. Far more common in this is a full clitoridectomy, and/or mutilation of the inner or outer labia.

But the real horror of FGM is not simply the drastic mutilation, but the after affects there of. Along with a long list of possible complications, in some variations of FGM where all external genitalia are removed, the girl's legs are bound together for over a month to cause the wound to seal together. This covers both the urethral opening and the entrance to the vagina, and a small hole is left to allow the passage of urine and menstrual blood. The vulva can later be cut open to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth. Because of the drastic nature of the surgery, FGM almost certainly takes away a woman's ability to reach orgasm, whether alone or with a partner--in fact, this is often the goal of the surgery itself. And more than that, it takes away a woman's sovereignty over her own body from an early age, and that may well be the most drastic and horrifying repercussion of FGM.

By calling FGM "female circumcision", we take away the impact of this dangerous and disgusting procedure. We normalize it, and we allow ourselves to look past what FGM does to a woman's sexual health and her control over her own body. "Female circumcision" doesn't show FGM to be what it really is--mutilation, and as such, I hope the term will fade out of use.