FEMALE MUTILATION: The Dynamics of the Mutilation of the Female Genitalia

FEMALE MUTILATION

The Rational Dynamics of Female Mutilation

The practice of mutilating the female clitoris goes very far back in history. I will try to explain, very briefly, why the practice developed and that the religious overtones are a pragmatic construction of men to legalize a pattern of behavior to control and maintain a social structure built on genus related inequality by Divine Order. 

Sometimes, in a vulgar context, the mutilation of the clitoris and the stitching together of the female vagina, is explained in terms of enhancing male sexual satisfaction. This, however, is not true. Anal intercourse to please the stimulation of a narrow passage for the male member has existed throughout history in every known society and still continues. The basic explanation for the cliterodoctomy rests on men's collective fear of insecurity as to the biological descent of the offspring. The need to ensure that a man is not only the social father (pater) but also the biological father (genitor) is paramount in all patriarchal social structures and elsewhere too. 

From a social Darwinist point of view, the patriarchate is a late bloomer. The egalitarian societies that emerged in habitats of abundance rested on a genus related division of labor for practical reasons. Women gathered seeds, roots, fruits and anything eatable that did not need the physical force of killing. Men were the hunters, who by collective cooperation could kill gamefar bigger, faster and stronger than the individual. Thus these social structures are known as Hunter's and Gatherer's 'societies. 

As long as a clan or a group felt no threat from another clan because of a shortage of resources in a given habitat, coexisting and bartering were common. The socially egalitarian structure did not allow any dominance, as we understand it, by one of the sexes over the other. Female sexuality is not an issue, nor is homosexuality, be it between men and men or women and women and this is what the early explorer's of the Old World, guilt ridden by a sexually hostile church and others before them called Paradise...The issue of who is the biological father when the women have free access to whatever partner orpartners she likes makes it uninteresting to try to find out about genealogy. A family system, the extended family with groups including more than forty relatives, is common and, as an African proverb states, "It takes a village to raise a child". The education and upbringing of a child was everybody's business. The concept of lineage was not absent but was often resting on the mother, since nobody was quite sure about the genitor's identity. The social pater was not uncommonly a maternal uncle, the Avunculate. 

Once the habitat became over populated the competition for the means of production became the trigger effect of developing a class of military specialist who could fight off or raid rival clans. This is the embryo of warfare or migration. In order to try to maintain some kind of equilibrium and to avoid incest, alliances must be formed, usually by the exchange of women which still is a mode of peace and survival strategies 2011, and paramount in all kingdoms or Empires until the 1950's...The aristocracy of the old world is a potent interbreeding where everybody still are more or less related by blood to each other. A Marriage of Convenience and not of love is a pattern spread all over the globe and still the prevailing form of bonding to ensure social stability, especially in a rural context. 

The Nomads, living in arid habitats, fighting over the control of the means of reproduction for their cattle and themselves, such as water supplies, pastures etc, rapidly became dependant on the soldiering. The fierce battles between different clans resulted in a permanent shortage of men and a surplus of women. The idea of polygamy develops. In this war inflictedsocieties strength and courage is premiered and the discipline, obedience and normative submissiveness in order not to jeopardize the clan is paramount. Women are an exchange of value, a commodity, to be offered in order to build a common defense or a peace generating tool with other rival groups. 

If a woman, or any individual of the conglomerate, deviated from the normative mindset she/he became a life threatening danger to the whole clan and would be killed or expelled. This mindset is governing the Honor Related Violence existing 2011. A woman gone astray and indulging in sexual relations with somebody not sanctioned by her own clan was seen as a wasted resource to be discarded of often expressed in terms of a lost honor in shame oriented societies. (North of the Alps we tend to be guilt oriented and need other strategies to be absolved) Taking into account the shortage of men the control over the women increased to the extent that extreme measures were taken as a prevention and vigilance over uncontrolled sexual desires and activities on part of all fertile females. 

If, by pragmatic intermarriage, it was found out that the bride was not a virgin it was an open insult to the husband's clan and would result in conflicts and warfare. The delicate balance of access to the means of production and reproduction in a poor habitat could not tolerate such an insult. Before monotheism developed every jinn or spirit in the animatistic cosmology would be called upon to slay the traitor. 

Homoerotic activities were regarded as harmless since it did not result in any offspring and a source of release of sexual tension when physical contact between the opposite sexes could not be allowed. This practice was spread from China, over Asia Minor, India, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and Europe and present in every pre-Columbian culture. Homosexuality, as we understand it, was however seldom tolerated. A married genuinely homosexual man who continued exclusively with his sexual preferences by not consuming his marriage meant death or expulsion. This was, to a degree, also the case in the period of Greek and Roman homoerotic relations saluted between mature men and young boys as well. The passive role could only be tolerated in young boys mostly of slave status. The homoerotic mentorship between men and boys of equal social status did not include penetration. The drama was as potential as a deflowered bride to be. Women, in opposite to Middle East tradition, were not regarded as sexual beings, whereas the mindset was contrary in Nomad cultures. 

By mutilating the clitoris of the daughters the parents ensured that the risk for premarital relations would diminish and by stitching together her vagina once she was married and deflowered a guarantee that she would never have sexual intercourse until her husband allowed a temporary restoration to be able to produce more offspring with him and that he could rest assured that he'd be the biological father. The concept of pain was altogether different in a harsh environment in which men and women had to endure painful hardships of all kinds. 

Religion merely adapted to this practice, although it did not occur in any religious scriptures and gradually it became associated with the religion itself. Islam, for instance, spread in the deserts of the Middle East, in very poor habitats, and changed the normative mindset, as did the other two dominant religions, by expansion from the urban sophistication of a Medina, Mecca or Jerusalem. The common heritage of Abraham, who lived in dire circumstances in the vicinity of Ur, had to leave with his clan and migrate to the present day regions of Syria and Israel, lived by this normative system, and by expelling Hagar, his Egyptian woman slave and his first born son Ismail, at the demand of Sara, only goes to prove the obsession of lineage at an early stage of the historical world of the three major religions. 

This, in summary, is only a very superficial and brief expose of one aspect of the development of gender related discrimination and man's obsession with control over female sexuality in general. 

Douglas Modig  January 2014