Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery or White Female Privilege?

2/7/2017

Yesterday was International Zero Tolerance for FGM Day so we decided to publish our SiA Magazine special edition teaser covering white women's female genital cosmetic surgery. Of course, the obvious question is why isn't WHO calling these practices FGM? Why is it only the bodies of African, black, Muslim or other non-western women that are labeled as "mutilated"?

Why is the western world eager to criminalize us, our mothers and grandmothers for upholding a traditional practice that is becoming more and more popular among white western women who are happy to pay thousands of dollars to copy our vajayjays?

Don't believe? White women would never do such a thing? Well, this issue of SiA Magazine features a few of these ads for so-called "labiaplasty", which fit squarely within the definition of WHO Type II Excision performed in Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Guinea and many other parts of West and East Africa. SiA shows that not only are white women getting rid of excess labial and clitoral tissue and flesh but they are doing so for the same reasons - comfort, aesthetics, better hygiene - and with the utter impunity that only white female privilege can afford. So, nuff said.

Presenting SiA and the Shabaka Stone, Vol 1, 2017.

Fuambai Sia Ahmadu, PhD

Fuambai Sia Ahmadu is an anthropologist, feminist, Bondo activist and passionate advocate for intragender equality worldwide. fuambaisiaahmadu.com or awafc.org

1 Comment

Henry Ferguson

2/8/2017 07:25:46 am

First I want to say well done you for producing another great issue of SiA. Your showing photos of vulvae, both black and white, circumcised and un-cut will help people to see the obvious similarities between the effects of traditional fgc and modern western cosmetic genital surgery. But the surgeries are not the same in one respect, in that the clitoral glans and shaft are retained in western fgc. In both traditional and western fgc the inner labia are trimmed. In western fgc the clitoral hood is sometimes trimmed too, whereas in traditional fgc the clitoral hood, glans and shaft are often excised along with the inner labia. At a glance, the results look similar, but on closer inspection you would find the western woman’s clitoral glans.

The clitoris has been discovered to be much more than the little shaft and glans beneath it’s hood. It’s a much larger inverted “V” shaped organ situated beneath the labia and surrounding the vulva, with the shaft and glans forming the anterior extremity. During masturbation most (uncut) women massage the shaft and glans directly, and those parts are still assumed to be necessary for satisfying sex. Respected sex research tells us that the clitoris (meaning the shaft and glans) gets indirect stimulation during penetrative sex. In your personal story you have said that removal of your clitoral shaft and glans did not leave you unable to enjoy sex or achieve orgasm. This directly challenges accepted (western) ideas about the clitoris and suggests that without the clitoral glans and shaft there is still plenty of erotic tissue and that orgasm is just as easily triggered? Will you be providing more evidence to allay fears about clitoridectomy?

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