Introduction

Female circumcision is performed across Africa in a broad triangular east-west band stretching from Senegal to Egypt in the northeast and Tanzania in the southeast. The operation meaning "cutting around" it accurately describes the Sunna form of circumcision which involves removal of the prepuce of the clitoris. This is analogous to male circumcision as it causes no impairment of sexual function. However, only a small number of circumcised women have the Sunna type. The majority undergo pharaonic circumcision which involves excision of the clitoris, the labia majora and the labia minora and infibulation (sewing up) of the vulva. The operation is commonly performed on girls between the ages of four and nine, although in Ethiopia, it may be done on girls as young as one year old.

Individual Rights vs. Group Identity

Issues

Robyn Cerny Smith, an author of a major study on female circumcision, as practiced by the Kikuyu of Kenya and the Darod of Somalia, provides one of the most thorough and sensitive treatments to the debate of women's right to be free from genital mutilation versus the tribal group's right to preserve its group identity through the practice. The term "Darod", as used here by Smith, applies to all Somali social groups, who practice the pharaonic-type female circumcision.

By Robyn Cerny Smith

From Female Circumcision: Bringing Women's Perspectives into the International Debate, Southern California Law Review, vol. 65:2449-2504 (1992)

"I. The defense of female circumcision...

"....I first present the argument that female circumcision has a functional value in the preservation of tribal group identity and therefore should be free from state interference. I then describe postmodernist and feminist criticism of this argument.

A. Tribal Group Identity

Before colonization, tribal groups of Africa were sovereign in all matters; they governed themselves. However, with colonization the tribal groups lost most of their sovereignty as it became vested in new nation-states that did not correspond to the boundaries of a single tribal group. As a result, sovereign powers became vested in nation-state arrangements that encompass many different tribal groups. Authorities concerned that tribal group identity might be lost in the nation-state organization argue that tribal groups must preserve remaining traditional rituals in order to maintain distinct village and tribal identities. They argue that female circumcision is one such ritual....

The Darod of Somalia

The Darod are a Somalian nomadic tribal group who practice the most severe form of circumcision, infibulation. The majority of tribal girls between the ages of 6 and 12 undergo infibulation. A woman who earns a living by performing the infibulation operates either upon an individual girl or a group of girls from the same extended family. In either case, the operation is performed in an isolated place "without fuss or feast" in the "cool, early morning." No ritual ceremonies are associated with infibulation.

Although no ritual surrounds female circumcision among the Darod, the practice may still have significance for the tribal group identity because it is related to the Darod religion of Islam. The nomadic social structure draws its contents from Islamic beliefs. The nomads derive many of their norms from the tenets and prophecies of Islam, set forth in the Sharia, which is composed of the Koran and the Sunna, a set of traditions derived from the words of the Prophet Muhammad.

The primary social unit of the Darod is the immediate family, which includes blood relatives of both spouses. The Darod depend on herding camels, sheep, goats, and cattle for their economic subsistence and therefore often migrate "to find sufficient food and water for their stock." The families that live and travel together are from the same lineage, called reer. The men are responsible for the "public" sphere of the tribe- the laws, the leadership, and the ownership of the family property. The women are responsible for the "private" sphere - the care-taking of the family and the animals.

"Islam regards female sexuality as active and as a lustful instinct which ... must be controlled." (Abdalla, 35). In addition, family honor depends on the women members' chastity. Thus, the Darod, like many Islamic tribes, believe that if women's sexuality is not controlled, the family will be disgraced and the social structure of the tribe will degenerate, causing social disorder.

Certain protections have been set up to prevent this chaos from occurring. Islam requires virginity before marriage, fidelity after marriage, and seclusion of the women from the men. Because seclusion is not possible in a nomadic society, female circumcision is seen as way of protecting women's chastity in the presence of any man and of reducing a woman's sexual desires. Infibulation in particular protects women's virginity before marriage. Until a woman is married, the opening of her vagina is only as large as the tip of a finger. Once she has been married, she must be cut open in order to allow penetration. In addition, female circumcision, like other protections, is a way of persuading women to adopt their secondary social position in the tribe. Thus female circumcision, in the view of the Darod, is important to maintaining tribal unity and organization...

Therefore, given the above anthropological analysis, tribal unity of the Darod cannot depend on female circumcision. None of the rite of passage characteristics present in the Kikuyu practice of female circumcision are present in the practice of the Darod. Nevertheless, the practice of female circumcision may contribute to Darod tribal identity by contributing to the maintenance of a gender hierarchy, in which women are subordinate to men. It is not clear, however, that tribal identity would disintegrate in the absence of hierarchy in the long run. Thus, according to this anthropological analysis, the Darod are at one end of spectrum - female circumcision does not contribute to the preservation of tribal group identity. The Kikuyu are at one end of the spectrum - female circumcision is crucial to maintaining tribal group identity....

The bias of traditional anthropological research methods:....

The research concerning the Darod practice of female circumcision appears to be less biased. All of the ethnographers cited women - Pia Grassivaro Gallo and Marian Abdisamed, and Raqiya Abdalla. These women are aware of gender hierarchy and question the gender relation involved in the practice of female circumcision among the Darod. Moreover, although Gallo is Italian, she questioned the Darod women about their perceptions and experiences. Both Abdisamed and Abdallah are Muslim, and Abdalla is also Somalian. Furthermore, both Abdisamed and Abdalla questioned the Darod women about their experiences. Therefore, these accounts of the Darod's practice of female circumcision are not biased as the Kikuyu research since the ethnographers recognize that women are also "agents of knowledge"....

III. Arguments against female circumcision: taking gender into account

In addition to preserving group identity, female circumcision has another main function. Certain tribal groups admit that they also perform the operation in order to reduce women's sexual desire. They believe that women's sexual desires are minimized by the removal of parts of their external genitalia. This section explores the motivations behind these particular tribal groups' determination to reduce women's sexual desire....

For example, the Darod regard "female sexuality ... as a lustful instinct which ... must be controlled .... [W]omen' sexuality is dangerous and needs to be curtailed". (Abdalla, 35).Rich argues that, " [I]t seems more probable that men really fear, not that they will have women's sexual appetites forced on them, or that women want to smother and devour them, but that women could be indifferent to them altogether, that men could be allowed sexual and emotional - therefore economic - access to women only on women's terms, otherwise being left on the periphery of the matrix" (Rich, 187).

As noted above, the primary reason female circumcision is performed among the Darod is to control women's sexuality. Among the Darod, "a woman is expected to constantly display an attitude of tenderness, spontaneous self-denial and self-sacrifice, not only towards her family, but also towards the whole tribe or clan of her husband "(Abdalla, 45). Only men control the legal, social, and economic aspects of the tribe. The Sharia suggests to men, "[a]s for those [women] from who [sic] you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Allah is high, supreme." (Sura 4:34). Thus, violence is recommended as a way to control women. Female circumcision is one such form of violent oppression and is meant to maintain female circumcision, Darod men control women's sexuality and thus ensure women's heterosexuality and male access to the women's sexuality and emotional support.

Among the Darod, female circumcision is also a way for the males to control both the productive and reproductive labor of the women and their children. The Darod are polygamous, and the male is the head of the family and owner of the family property. A woman's main value comes from the production of sons.

Social factors may force women to undergo or perform the operation. An uncircumcised woman would bring disgrace upon her family; she would be unable to marry and hence would bring no bride price to her family. She would be ostracized from life within her tribal group, the only life she knows. Also, Darod women are economically coerced into performing and undergoing infibulation. Midwives often derive all of their income from performing the operation. Women are also economically dependent on the men of the tribe. A woman without a husband would have no way to make a living in a small nomadic tribe where the men own the cattle, which are the main source of income.

Overall, female circumcision among the Darod is a method of ensuring women's subservience to men and of coercing women to accept the secondary social position in the tribe.

References cited

Raqiya Haji Dualeh Abdalla, Sisters in Affliction (1982)
Aldrienne Rich, Compulsory Hetrosexuality and Lesbian Existence, in The POWERS OF DESIRE 177 (Ann Snitow et a. eds., 1983)