Peck 1
Deserae Peck
Paola Brown
ENG 102
3 March 2008
Female circumcision is also known, more accurately, as female genital mutilation
and female genital cutting (FGC.) There are three forms of FGC. The first is a
clitoridectomy, the cutting and/or removal of the hood of the clitoris and all or part of the
clitoris. The second is an excision which removes the clitoris, the hood, and the labia
minor (the inner folds of the vulva that is responsible for producing lubrication.) The
infibulation is the third and most radical which also removes everything in the excision
along with the labia majora, the outer folds of the vulva. Once removed the sides of the
vulva are sewn together leaving a small hole (about pencil size) for the flow of
menstruation and urine. The tradition of FGC dates back more than 1000 years and is
practiced in parts of Asia, the Far East, Europe, Asia, South America, and even amongst
certain ethnic groups in the United States.
Aisha Abdel Majid tells of her experience in an interview with Rogaia Mustafa
Abusharaf, an anthropologist born in Sudan, in her article “Unmasking the Tradition of
Female Circumcision.” Majid describes her cutting is when she was only 6 years old. She
recalls being taken by her mother and two aunts to the midwife in the neighborhood known
for performing circumcisions. She is told that she is going to be purified. Upon this
realization Aisha tries to break free but is forced down and ordered onto a bed of ropes
with a hole in the middle. She accounts,
Peck 2
“They held me tight while the midwife started to cut my flesh without anesthetics. I
screamed till I lost my voice. The midwife was saying to me, ‘Do you want me to
be taken into police custody?’ After the job was done I could not eat, drink or even
pass urine for three days. I remember one of my uncles who discovered what they
did to me threatened to press charges against his sisters. They were afraid of him
and they decided to bring me back to the midwife. In her sternest voice she ordered
me to squat on the floor and urinate. It seemed like the most difficult thing to do at
that point, but I did it. I urinated for a long time and was shivering with
pain.”(Abusharif pgs 1-2)
Aisha continues on though it took her a long time to recover looking back now over forty
years later she understands the motivations of her mother wanting her to be clean, but it
