On Laws Banning Hacking Women’s Genitals & Imposing Beliefs

I stole most of the headline from The Times, which ran a subtler version: “Laws banning FGM are harmful and ‘stigmatising’, say academics“. The practice of slicing off a women’s pertinents is now so common in England, thanks to massive immigration, they know it by its acronym “FGM”, for female genital mutilation. It’s still on the rare side in the States, so I spelled it out.

Before we quote the story, let me remind you of the So’s Yer Old Man Fallacy. This happens when you make an accusation and your opponent, instead of attempting to rebut the charge, defends herself by accusing you of a different misdeed. Wives use this against husbands to great effect. The original accusation is lost in the resulting melee. Now the story:

Laws that ban female genital mutilation (FGM) are harmful and “stigmatising” towards migrant communities, academics have claimed in a British Medical Journal publication.

The essay argues that criticism of FGM, which involves cutting or removing females’ genitals for non-medical reasons, is “sensationalist” and based on “racialised stereotypes”.

It draws an equivalence between FGM in Africa and a trend for cosmetic genital procedures in the UK and US whereby women undergo surgery to create a “designer vagina”.

The “designer vagina” ploy is the So’s Yer Old Woman (in this case) in all its sordid glory. That one group engages in an insane practice, such as carving up a vagina for photogenic reasons, is irrelevant, meaningless, of no value, immaterial, not germane, useless in answering the question whether it is good to routinely slice off woman’s clitorises (clitorii?).

The Fallacy is featured in the peer-reviewed paper “Harms of the current global anti-FGM campaign” by Fuambai Sia Nyoko Ahmadu and a slew of others in BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics. You have to enjoy the brazenness of calling being against mutilation harmful.

The Fallacy would remain if instead of “designer vaginas” other manipulations such as piercings, tattoos, or whatever is applied to genitals. We cannot answer whether it is right or wrong to hack up a young lady by knowing about tattoos. But this is what the authors believe, opening their paper:

In cultures around the world, people have, for millennia, engaged in a wide range of practices to modify human genitalia: through pricking or piercing; adornment with jewellery; stretching, cutting or excising tissues;

To define FGM, here’s WHO:

Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice has no health benefits for girls and women and can result in severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, menstrual difficulties, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.

The authors of the paper are right to point out variants:

[T]ype 1 affecting the clitoral prepuce and potentially also the clitoris tip; type 2 affecting the labia with or without also affecting the external clitoris, and type 3 including cutting and closure, or infibulation. Type 4 is added for other sorts of ‘non-medical’ procedures to the female genitalia deemed to be harmful, including ‘pricking’ or ‘nicking’ of the vulva without tissue removal.

Nice choice of words.

All variants are barbaric. According to my views, that is, which I would impose on these genitalia hackers. On the other hand, they seek to impose their views on me, and say these practices are dandy fine.

We are thus in the realm of the Imposing Your Beliefs Fallacy. What most forget is that somebody’s views must be imposed. I would rather they were mine, and, of course, our authors would rather it be theirs. Who decides is who wins.

There used to be an incident well known on the right, but which you don’t see quoted much anymore, that sums up the situation well.

Sir Charles Napier was Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in India in the mid 1800. The Brits banned sati (or suttee), which was the practice of burning, alive, the widow of a deceased husband. When confronted by an Indian with a Bic anxious to burn a lady, arguing searing flesh was according to his custom, Napier made this reply:

Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to our custom.

Thus were the flames extinguished. Thus were Napier’s views imposed. Notice carefully the widow’s choice also had nothing to do with Napier’s decision. If he surrendered to her choice, that would have been the Consent Fallacy (which I’ll post again soon).

Our custom used to be, on hearing somebody hacked up the genitalia of some girl, to trot the scissors-wielder off to a goodly term in pokey. But fear of Imposing Beliefs, the direct product of the pernicious Equality Fallacy, has caused us to become “non-judgmental”. Which means we’ll be judged by someone who isn’t.

This is their entire argument: that they should judge, not you. This explains their header “The silencing of alternative voices”, intimating this is a bad thing, and why they use words like “stigmatising”, as if that were wrong.

All crises are spiritual. If you refuse to say My Way Is Right, you must surrender to those who will.

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