Mayer-Hohdahl, Marion
1998 Female Circumcision: Human Rights. Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Notes: 1 videocassette (41 min.); sd., col.; 1/2 in. Reporter/ producer Marion Mayer-Hohdahl; camera, Jean-Pascal Bublex; sound, Alain Pentucci; editor, Stan Thomas. http://www.films.com/Films_Home/item.cfm?s=1&bin=7854Reviewed 07 Mar 2002 by:
Raymond A. Bucko <bucko@creighton.edu>
Creighton University, Omaha Nebraska, USAMedium: Film/Video Subject
Keywords:Female circumcision - Africa
Clitoridectomy
Documentary films
ABSTRACT: Female Circumcision: Human Rights examines the complex issue of female circumcision. This is a widespread practice, as the film points out, found in Africa, the Middle East, and, unmentioned by the film, among the immigrant populations in Europe and the United States. It has also become an international political issue as people apply for asylum in various countries to avoid the operation.
Playing on the word ôritesö in the title, Female Circumcision treats the issue of female circumcision as a ritual (rite), and as a cultural right; at the same time, at the same time, the practice is shown as a violation of human rights, because of the dangers involved in the operation and its long-term physical effects. While the filmmakers are clear on their own ethical positions, expressed through narratives and images, the film itself is multivocal, allowing individual cultural participants to speak for and against this practice. It is here that the genius of this documentary is evident, for the viewer has the opportunity to form an opinion based on a variety of voices and, at the same time, hear the opinions of the narrator, while watching footage of the actual circumcisions (also referred to as excisions). Even though the film begins by warning the viewer of the graphic nature of these scenes, the reviewer cannot overemphasize how unsettling and disturbing they are, and how distressing this film would be if shown even in a college classroom. At the same time, the very depictions of this practice speak loudly to the horrors of this operation.The film begins with an African woman speaking against the practice of female circumcision. The scene then shifts to a baby girl being circumcised with a razor blade as she screams and writhes. The narrator goes on to explain that more than 100 million girls are circumcised, that this practices is found in Islam, Christianity and among Animist believers, and that there are 30 countries where this practice occurs. This sets up the basic theme and tension of the documentary that is sustained throughout the film.
The bulk of the work focuses on two modern states, Togo and Burkina Faso, and provide detailed descriptions of female circumcision rituals and interviews both with those who perform the operation, as well as with health workers who are trying to stop the practice. There also are individuals who stress that the operation is harmless and essential to their culture and social life. In addition to incredibly graphic footage the film points out that in addition to razors, can tops, stones, knives and broken glass are sometimes used for the actual cutting. Two millions girls are circumcised a year, according to the narrator. Some die of trauma or hemorrhage and the rest suffer life-long effects: dangerous births, physical and/or emotional pain, infections, loss of sexual pleasure, painful sex, and disfigurement.
While the filmmakers clearly condemn female circumcision, they are careful to demonstrate how deeply the practice is embedded in cultural tradition through a thorough ethnographic portrait of female rites of passage and opinions of the participants. Female circumcision is believed to be ordained by the ancestors, or, in the case of some Muslim practitioners, the Koran. If a woman is not circumcised she is an outcast and unsuitable for marriage. Circumcision, according to cultural belief, makes a girl pure, a full woman, and suitable for marriage. Circumcision constitutes an important transformational ritual, both physical and symbolic, for young girls and, in some places, for infants and children. Thus the sanctions for this practice are strong and are an integral part of religion, family structure, values, cosmology, economics (practitioners make a living from this operation), and cultural practice.
At the same time, modern states have banned the practice although this ban is often ignored. The Sudan proscribed the custom in 1941 and Egypt and Burkina Faso have also outlawed the procedure. The film documents how health workers use education in an attempt to eliminate the practice by working with villagers, native doctors and those who perform the actual excisions -- even popular films are employed to curtail the custom. In all cases, the focus is on eliminating the practice through persuasion and education rather than the force of law. The film also points out that Islamic scholars renounce female circumcision as a part of Islam even though folk belief holds it to be an essential practice. Nevertheless, as excision continues, often underground, some seek safer operations rather than its abolition.
This is an outstanding film to utilize in an anthropology course, although the reviewer wishes that the film was less graphic or that there was a second, less horrific version. Nevertheless, no one who views the film will forget it. Despite anthropologyÆs ethos of cultural relativism and the disciplineÆs loss of confidence due to its complicity in a colonialism that felt that the West had the right and moral obligation to intervene throughout the world to ôadvance cultureö, the film suggests that people can indeed be victims of tradition and that rights are not simply culturally bound but are also universal. The film adds to its own clearly anti-excision stance the views of human rights organizations such as UNICEF which vocally condemn this operation. This practice is criticized in the film not only on the basis of its medical dangers but also the fact that it is often involuntary and that it clearly has a role in suppressing women and maintaining male domination.
The question becomes one of how to balance cultural relativity, and rights of cultural autonomy and sovereignty with a universal set of human rights. What is essential about the film is that clearly local people themselves are becoming aware of the problems of this practice through education, increased exposure to the outside world, and more sophisticated health practices. The film does not suggest that Europeans come to the rescue. In fact there are no Europeans depicted in the film except for the voices of the narrator and translators. The film does offer the challenge that all practices are not allowable simply because they are embedded in culture and that people within cultures can change and transform their practices and themselves while maintaining respect for tradition itself. The question of culture change is thorny indeed, and the film, though highly persuasive against the custom, shows that among societies in which circumcision is practiced this cultural institution is still viewed as valid and essential for a woman to gain her full humanity.
This is a very disquieting film and no one who is not a member of the cultures involved who views it would conclude that female circumcision is a good thing or should be permitted. Yet the real importance of the film, which is understated if not unstated, is that there remains a tension between tradition and modernity, between cultural relativism and universal rights, and that practices which have gone unquestioned for long periods of time may come into question through a variety of factors. This tension is faced on many levels, economics, culture, religion and gender relations and solutions are highly complex. Clearly, this example of a cultural practice is so horrendous, and its representations in the film itself are so disturbing that the narrator can end with stating that circumcision is not a question of human rights and that those upon whom this practice is perpetrated are ôvictims of tradition.ö
For further information on the topic of female circumcision see the following:
- Female Genital Mutilation Education and Networking Project:
- http://www.fgmnetwork.org/
- United States and international legislation:
- http://www.fgmnetwork.org/legisl/index.html
- areas of the world where female circumcision is practiced:
- http://www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/world.html
- list of videos on female circumcision: (this film is not listed)
- http://www.fgmnetwork.org/reference/femfilms.html
- a bibliography of printed sources:
- http://www.fgmnetwork.org/reference/biblio.html
- Amnesty International bibliography of printed sources: (last updated in 1997)
- http://web.amnesty.org/802568F7005C4453/0/746B2B49C4B5520E802569A5007186E8?Open&Highlight=2,circumcisionon
To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the following style:
Bucko, Raymond A.
2002 Review of Female Circumcision: Human Rights. Anthropology Review Database. March 07. Electronic document, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=1489, accessed February 9, 2010.© Anthropology Review Database
(available online: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/)