Is Education the Answer?
In the July/August 1994 publishing of Ms. magazine, Barbara Reynolds wrote an article in the news section titled “The Move to Outlaw Female Genital Mutilation” [7]. The article follows the story of Patricia Schroeder and Barbara-Rose Collins, both white female Democratic Representatives of Michigan who introduced legislation to prevent female genital cutting [8]. The article lays out the scope of the legislation Schroder and Collins introduced to Congress in October of 1993, which would not be passed until 1996 as the official Female Genital Mutilation Act.
Many activists that Reynolds' interviewed for the article agreed with the legislation, but had concerns that parents were more likely to get prosecuted than the educated doctors [9]. Hibaaq Osman and Asma Abdel argue that female genital cutting activists who are not from communities where the procedure takes place frame it in the wrong way. In a western activist context, cutting is framed as a sexual issue: that cutting is a form of patriarchal control over female sexuality [10]. Though an extensive amount of evidence is present, western views of female genital cutting are misrepresented into the argument that African women are being oppressed by the patriarchy. Reynolds concludes her article with the statement that for the legalization of the act to be successful, the education process is key or else young girls will still be sent abroad to have the procedure performed [11].
Reynolds article does crtiqiue the white sensationalization of female genital cutting through her interview of Osman and Abdel, but she still conludes her article with an analysis of the U.S patriarchal legal system. Her overall argument is that the patriarchy of the U.S legal system is prohibiting women from seeking safety from female genital cutting. Reynolds uses the same white woman superiortiy complex that McCarthy used instead of allowing non-White women to have a voice it is Reynolds voice we hear that is demanding the protection of non-White women.