Learning New Things

Something I was uninformed about was female genital cutting. A classmate of mine did a presentation on female genital cutting, but do not worry I do not get explicit about the process.

So, some things I did not know about FGC, one there are different versions of Female Genital Cutting. Two it is normally largely celebrated in the villages or communities of an entrance into womanhood. Three it is led by females in the villages and the communities. Four some girls, who are old enough to choose, really want to have FGC performed on them.

I was very surprised to learn the social factors which o along with FGC. This was portrayed very well in a documentary we saw directed by a woman who returned to her native area of Africa to partake in a FGC ceremony. I learned a lot from the presentation but my opinion I drew from it was some reforms should be made to the process of FGC in my personal opinion. Such as having the procedure of FGC postponed until girls are of an age where they fully understand the procedure and what it means and then make the choice themselves if they want to go through with the procedure. Secondly I feel the procedure of FGC should be medicalized. What I mean by this is that it should be done as a fully medical procedure with sterilization and proper medical tools etc. Now for both these things to be accomplished they cannot be just imposed on a society. It has to come from the community; there should be educational services about child rights and also about health issues related to FGC so that it can be the community’s choice to implement these reforms not imposed from outsiders onto their society.

Now I do not want you thinking this was a one sided panel with only supporters of FGC there were also two speakers present who opposed FGC. Honestly I found these speakers to be attacking and not open to ideas or opinions outside of their own. I felt they were very stuck in their own ideas without being open to other. I see this attitude to be very detrimental to having change actually occur in the world because people will not accept something forced upon them. But all in all it was a great presentation which I learned a lot at!