Why was clitoridectomy so quickly condemned but not this?
Nov 16 '99 (Updated Dec 04 '99)
The World Health Organization had a conference in February 1979 in Khartoum, Sudan, and unanimously condemned the mutilations as disastrous to women’s health and as indefensible on medical as well as humane grounds. (from http://www.eskimo.com/%7egburlin/female.html)
In comparison anatomy (looking at codevelopment of ontogeny) the clitoris plays the same role in human females as the foreskin plays in human males, yet we are quick to rally against clitoridectomy while embrace fables and wives tales that circumcision is good.
I agree with Kristin Kueter's Epinion that large populations of people who practice circumcision do it mainly out of social convention. There hasn't been a long-standing tradition of clitoridectomy so this act can be easily cast-off as inhumane and a butchery of the near perfect human female form. I totally agree.
But how can't you draw parallels to the human male? Do religions honestly believe that although Man was created first, they can be judged imperfect by the nature of having what they deem "extra" sensory skin? What religious sect would be the first to publicly claim that Man, God's creation, is imperfect and only correctable by the church, which is run by Man.
Logically I would have to chalk this practice up as a mistake in tradition that churches sometimes make but upon realizing their fault aren't too stubborn to graciously abolish.
I have heard of fear in the Jewish community about dwindling numbers: this leads me to think that the practice of circumcision is not most strongly embraced for medical reasons at all. It would seem to be embraced as a symbolic representation of the Jewish faith. A tattoo, if you will, that men should wear as honor badges while they go forth and populate the world with Jews. (Even though a child is only Jewish through maternal lineage, but that issue I'll sweep under the rug for a moment).
That would definitely be seen as a vice for the religion if it were true. How self-serving, and how uncompassionate would that be for true followers of their doctrine?
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Superdoo
|
|
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Reviews written: 67
Trusted by: 82 members
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.