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I- Boston Review

Hands Off C:litoridectomy

What our revulsion reveals about ourselves.

Yael Tamir

Not since Masters and Johnson has the clitoris --or its absence --been a topic of such
intense debate. In discussions about multiculturalism, clitoridectomy is now the trump card,
taking over the role once played by cannibalism, slavery, lynchings, or the Indian tradition of
Sati: "~s this thE~k.nd of trad.tioo you would like to protect?" liberals ask embarrassed
multiculturalist~i, who immedlateiy quaiify their cuiturai piuraiism. Ciitoridectomy defines the
boundary betwleen us and them, between cultures we can tolerate and those we must
corTdemrT.

Clitoridectomy is obviously a deplorabfe practice. ft is, among other things, an extremely

painfu~,traumatizing rnuti~atJon of young girls that leaves them permanent~ydisfigured and
deprived of se)~uafenjoyment. We should express no sympathy toward those who practice it,
and support those who struggfe to end it.
But we also shioufdbe suspicious about
the role of cfitclridectomyin current
political debatE~.Despite their liberal
appearance, r~~ferencesto clitoridectomy
commonly revE~atg patrorTfZrrTgattitude -.'
toward women, suggesting that they are tjut wnen IS
primarily se~ual beings. M~reover, those the body improved
references Invofve a certaIn deqree of ., -
dishonesty. They intentJona!~ywidenthe- and when IS It
" .-, ed ? In
gap betWeen our cuiture
.T and those
crt tn in mJ Itil~t
h. h I ." d
W IC c Itorl ej~tomyIS prac.!c~~, us
presenting tho:seothercuttures as mas t cases, the
IncommensurslblewIth ours. The effect of anS\AJer depends on
thi~ distan?ing is to di~~nnect criticism of , t'
their practIces from cntlClsmof our own, one s concep K>n
and turn reflecti~ on other cuttw:es-into of beauty,
yet another oocasrOrTfor cetebratlng our .
speciar virtues. We should resist such
self-congratu~adJon. And if we 00, the
debate about <:Iitoridectomytakes on an
entirely different cast.

The most straightfolWard objection to cJitoridectomy is that it is a painful procedure, imposed

on young girls, and performed in conditions whiCh courd read to permanent damage. This is
a~1true, and part of what makes the practice 00 objectionable. But it could not be thewhol&
of the matter. j'fter all, removing a tooth is also a painful procedure, often imposed on
children, and if performed in non-hygienic conditions, it can produce permanent damage. But
we are noth-onifred and'dtSgtisted by evrdencetlTatscrctTtreat:ments are ttTe norm rn some

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parts of the 'world, and that many children suffer greatly as a reslJIt.

Moreover, we <ire all aware of painful practices of body piercing, tattooing, and abnormal
elongation of lilPS,ear lobes, and necks. National Geographic runs cover photos of women
and men who have undergone such severe malformations, not in protest but as a neutral
representation of other ways of life with their different conceptions of beauty. So hostility to
clitoridectomy is not driven principally by concerns about physical suffering. Those who
object to it wOUIldbe no less hostile if it were performed in hygienic conditions under
anesthesia.

It might be said that these examples are all irrelevant as they do not include the mutilation of
the body. But v:;hen i~ the body improved and 'Iv'hen is it mutilated? Are parents vv'hoforce
their children to wear braces mutilating their children's teeth or improving them? in most
cases, the ans'~!er depends on one's conception of beauty. Because vie tend to see straight,
white teeth as ibeautifui, and a sign of good health, we spend lots of money inflicting pain and
inconvenience upon our children to achieve this goal. To be sure, parents say (sincerely) that
these treatments will improve their children's life chances, self-image, and social standing.
But parents wniO perform ciitoridectomy on their daughters invoke preciseiy the same
arguments.

Furthermore, it seems clear that Western conceptions of female beauty encourage women to
undergo a widE~range of painful, medically unnecessary, and potentially damaging processes
--extreme diet:s, depilation, face lifts, fat pumping, silicone implants. Of course, adult women
do these thing~) to their own bodies, and, it is said, their decisions are freely made. But would
our gut reaction to female circumcision be very different if it were p&rformed on consenting
adults? It is noj~unlikely that girls at the age of 13 or 14, who are considered in traditional
societies as adults mature enough to vied and bear children, would "consent" to the
mutilation of thleir bodies if they were convinced that marriage and chiidren were contingent
on so doing. Many women who followed the traditionofSati see.med todoit.asamatter of
chuic;e. Did U)ei.-"~II~flt" ,-nake tj'iiS lICidilioo tlefeosibie? yAVUllleu"wfr~nt"io ~uch
practices becatJse the alternative IS even more painful -a lite of solitude.. numlliatlon, ana
deprivation.

One may arguE~that these traditions are objectionable because their persistence fosters false
consciousness, which in turn leads women to make such choices. But our own culture
fosters false beliefs of a similar kind. According to Naomi Wolfs The Beauty Myth, some 75
percent of women aged 18-35 believe that they are fat, whereas only 25 percent are
medically oven.veight.1 Still more heartbreaking is the fact that the majority of the 30,000
women who re:sponded to a Glamour questionnaire preferred losrng 1 0-15 pounds to
success in work or in love. So the fostering of such beliefs cannot differentiate their culture
from our own and explain our hostilrty to it.

Perhaps, then, we object to clitoridectomy because it is perfOrmed on minors. But think of the
parents in our (~Iture who foster in their daughters bad eating habits that might destroy their
teeth or their vital organs, or, in more tragic cases, lead to life--threatening eating disorders.
Are we ready to judge these parents as harshly as we judge parents who require
clitoridectomie!;?

In both cases, parents sincerely believe that they are serving the interests of their children
and allowing them to live what is, according to their conception of the good, a meaningful life.
Both cases may thus be taken to demonstrate that parents are not the most trustworthy
guardians of their children, but why should one case be more harshly judged than the other?

Because clitori,dectomyis permanent, whereas other undesirable outcomes are reversible?

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Yet irreversibility is a problem only if the outcome is undesirable. In what way are the
consequences of clitoridectomy undesirable?

The common ;3nswer is that clitoridectomy damages women's sexual organs, thus depriving
them of sexual enjoyment -a basic need, perhaps even a right. One may wonder, however,
when precisely our society became so deeply committed to women's sexual enjoyment.

As we know --from Masters and Johnson to the Hite report --many women in our own
society rarely, iif at all, experience sexual enjoyment. We are also aware that many features
of our society turn women against their own bodies and encourage them to suppress their
sexuality. The high frequency of rapes or attempted rapes, childhood sexual abuse, the
battering of women, and exposure to pornography limits women's sexual expression and
enjoyment. Bo(jily self-hatred, encouraged by the introduction of unrealizable standards of
beauty --teenage models, Barbie dolls, or even children's fairy-tales --fosters frustration and
feelings of ir\aclequacy.

From Cinderella to Lady D., from Playboy to children's cartoons, the ideal woman is
portrayed as a thin, delicate creature with large breasts, a narrow waist, and a limited
intellect. Those who do not measure up may spend a lifetime of "self-improvement" and
encounter pem1anent feelings of failure and disgust. Feminists have argued that these
phenomena have devastating effects on the ability of women to enjoy sex, and yet very little
is done in our ~;ociety to change the nature of this oppressive reality. Perhaps, then, we are
not as committled to assuring women the ability to experience sexual enjoyment as we seem
to be when we condemn clitoridectomy.

The difference may be that the damage to women's sexual lives is an unintended
consequence of the undesirable features of our own society, whereas this is the aim of
clitoridectomy. Perhaps the intentionality makes the act particularly repellent. If so, we should
be much less forgiving of parents who, for religious reasons, teach their daughters that sex
in general and masturbation in particular are obscene, thus eliciting fear and revulsion at
sexual activitie:s. This damage may be psychological rather than physical. But if limited
sexual enjoymE~ntis the issue, why should the particular nature of the harm matter so much?
It is indeed a s1:rikingfeature of our society that we are so much more liberal with parents
who inflict permanent psychological damage on their children than with parents who slap
them or do not take proper care of their clothing or personal hygiene. The different ways in
which we react to visible and invisible damages is disturbing; though our reaction to visible
injuries is based on aesthetic as well as moral disgust, it is inconsistent with what we know of
the severity of Imental injuries.

We come closE~rto the reason why arguments against clitoridectomy are so troubling if we
focus on what is special about sex organs. An implicit assumption in these arguments is that
if there were no physiological barrier to sexual enjoyment, women's lives would greatly
improve. But ~~rhaps we should remind ourselves that women are not merely sexual agents,
that their abilit)i to lead rich and rewarding lives does not depend solely on the nature of their
sex life. Are WE!moving from an age in which female orgasms could not be publicly
discussed, in ,-,'hich women were supposed to "endure" sex for the sake of childbearing, to
one in which the right to multiple orgasms will be the principal emblem of women's liberation?

One cannot help thinking that the gut reaction of many men against clitoridectomy reflects
the fact that in ,our society the sexual enjoyment of women is seen as a measure of the
sexual power and achievements of men. Men in our society are more intimidated by women
who do not enjoy orgasms than by those who do. In societies in which clitoridectomies are
performed, men are more intimidated by women who do enjoy their body and their sexuality.
In both cases, ,a masculine yardstick measures the value of female sexuality.

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It is important 1:0remember that the first champion of women's right to sexual pleasure, the
sexologist Havelock Ellis, strongly opposed women's social liberation. He opposed women's
employment outside the home, and firmly believed that "every healthy woman ought to
exercise her productive function at least once in her lifetime, and asserted that women's
brains were in a certain sense. ..in their womb.,,2 The right of women to enjoy their
sexuality, he alrgued, was independent of their right to equal standing in the society; the
former right, hE~thought, was to be seen as prior to, or worse, a substitute for, a whole set of
political and economic freedoms.

A fulfilling sex life is certainly one good, but there are others. Nuns take an oath of celibacy,
but we do not lJsually condemn the church for preventing its clergy from enjoying an active
sex life. Moreover, most of us do not think that Mother Teresa is leading a worse life than
Chichulina, though the latter claims to have experienced an extensive number of orgasms.

It is true that nlJns are offered spiritual life in exchange for earthly goods, but in the societies
where clitoride~:tomy is performed, the fulfilling life of motherhood and child bearing are
offered in exchange. Some may rightly claim that one can function as a wife and a mother
while still expel"iencing sexual pleasures. Others believe that full devotion to God does not
require an oathl of celibacy. Yet these views are, after all, a matter of convention. Hence, the
problem with clitoridectomy cannot be the deprivation of sexual experiences.

A thought expE!riment might be helpful here. Suppose that anthropologists discover a new
tribe in the woods of Libidia. In this tribe young females who reach the age of sexual maturity
are forced to go through a ceremony in which their clitoris is manipulated in a way that they
are more likely to experience lengthy and extremely enjoyable orgasms. The ceremony is
quite pleasant, performed by women, and not at all humiliating.

As a result, the! women of Libidia turn nymphomaniac. Consequently, they lack the
concentration rleeded to perform any serious task. They drop out of school, have limited
career prospects, and become completely dependent on male support. Hence, women are
marginalized socially, economically, and politically: They own no property, hold no political or
economic positions, do not participate in the political process, and have no social influence.

In protest against this tradition, members of a feminist group decide to undergo

clitoridectomy. They follow the Amazons, who, according to legend, would amputate their
right breast to be able to comfortably carry quivers and be free in the exercise of warfare. In
mutilating themselves, the women of Libidia free themselves of any reliance on men and are
able to pursue their social and political goals. Sexual enjoyment, they argue, is important, but
experiencing it is no assurance of living a meaningful life. Is there anything wrong with such a
practice?

Sexual enjoym~enthas acquired a mythical status in our society, advocated both as the most
sublime and most corruptive pleasure. Advocates of clitoridectomy see the corruption:
Performing clitoridectomy will restrict the sexual desires of women, thereby turning them into
more chaste and righteous wives and mothers. They believe that the pursuit of sexual
pleasures may lead a person astray, and that women are more likely to be influenced by
such desires and act unscrupulously.

Both assumptions are also well grounded in the Western tradition. The failure to control the
pursuit of sexu~alpleasures was seen by religious thinkers, as well as by many secular
liberals, as undermining virtue, fostering bad habits and pernicious behavior, and hindering
the possibility of true love (either of God or of other human beings). In the Christian tradition
celibacy was a1=firmedas the highest ideal, and "sex within marriage was regarded as an evil
necessary for tlhe continuation of the species.,,3

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The assumption that women are weak-willed

and feeble-minded is also well founded in
Western schools of thought. From Plato to
But if we will obiect Kant to ~ohl~erg, a long line of philosophers
J and social thinkers has urged that women are
to clitoridectomy on naturally lighthearted, prone to temptation,
" lO "t I d and therefore less able to practice
SOCIO-pO I Ica groun S self-restraint and think in moral terms. More
--yet another way likely than men to be corrupted, they need
Pp ressin g women --special guidance, restraint, and pro~ecti<:>n.
of O " Freud added that women who require clitoral
the argument will stimulus are victims of arrested development.
have clear implications Mat.ure i~dividuals. r~di~ect their sex~al
.desires "Into creativity In the arts, sciences,
for our own society" politics, business, religion, and other
.non-sexual activities. Repression takes its toll
on the individual psyche, but a necessary toll.
Repression is civilization.4
What is wrong with this attitude toward female sexuality --whether expressed by
clitoridectom~', the Libidian tradition, or our own culture --is its social purpose: to use sex as
a means of subjecting women and depriving them of their chance to participate in society as
equals. The major problem with clitoridectomy, then, is socio-political. Clitoridectomy is yet
another way of oppressing women and locking them at home, of seeing them as the
producers of children and as a source of pleasure to others. But if we will object to
clitoridectomy on these grounds, the argument will seem very familiar, and will have clear
implications for our own society.

Michael Walzer has argued that every morality has both a thin universal dimension and a
thick contextualized content.5 The same is true of wickedness. Societies discriminate,
dominate, and abuse their members in various ways, but there is something common to all
expressions of oppression. We should place this core aspect, repeated in all traditions in
different forms, at the center of our criticism. In the cases discussed here, it is not a
particular practice but a set of ill-motivated efforts to control the sexuality of women and to
restrict their ability to compete for social and political resources that we should find
reprehensible.
Does the overwhelming disgust at clitoridectomy signal an emerging social commitment to
structural change --to ensuring equal social, economic, and political status for women? I'm
afraid not. Of course, the absence of such commitment is no justification for clitoridectomy.
My purpose, however, is not to justify clitoridectomy, but to expose the roots of the deep
hostility to it --to reveal the smug, unjustified self-satisfaction lurking behind the current
condemnation of clitoridectomy. Referring to clitoridectomy, and emphasizing the distance of
the practice from our own conventions, allows us to condemn them for what they do to their
women, support the struggle of their women against their primitive, inhuman culture, and
remain silent on the status of women in our society.
It is time, then, to hold off on using the
Multicultural example of clitoridectomy. But this
.discussion also carries a more
exchanges raise fundamental implication for current debate
acute concerns on multiculturalism. As I indicated at the
h outset, too often and too easily this debate
beca use t ey produces condemnations of cultures other

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