Female Genital Cutting: Background

Various forms of female genital cutting have a long history throughout different cultures across the world, such as Asia, Africa, Europe and even Euro-America. All forms of the practice are often physically and psychologically damaging as they can control and repress women's sexuality. In the nineteenth century, Victorian views that condoned genital cutting revolved around the concept that women were less sexual than men; therefore, the act of masturbation was not in line with the heterosexual expectations of a female and often resulted in genital cutting. In the twentieth century, genital cutting could treat masturbation, depression, and lesbianism [1]. When practiced on white women, genital cutting was used as a way to keep women in their heterosexual marriages and gender norms [2]. This exhibit is a feminist and human rights critique of female genital cutting. Too often, the critique of female genital cutting becomes highly sensationalized, stripped of cultural context, and used as a generalized attack on specific cultures and religious communities. In this case, female genital cutting becomes "proof" that Asian and African cultures use cutting as a way to oppress women. The build-up of anti-genital cutting activists in the 1990s created such an outcry to protect non-White women's rights in the United States and internationally that it pushed American leaders to enact policies protecting women from genital cutting, such as the Genital Mutilation Act. The Genital Mutilation Act was passed in 1996 by the US Federal Government, prohibiting the practice of genital cutting on women under the age of eighteen in the United States. Female genital cutting is frequently used against women and support culturally grounded, contextualized restrictions on the practice. This project will examine the shaping of the Female Genital Mutilation Act of 1996 through media and Congressional debates in the 1990s.