Female Genital Mutilation: Cultural Relativism or Ethnocentrism?
mutilation (FGM) as “procedures that intentionally alter or injure
female genital organs for nonmedical reasons” (World Health
Organization,
2010a). It has no medical benefits. It typically results
in pain, humiliation, psychological trauma, and loss of sexual
pleasure. It often causes shock, injury to neighboring organs, severe
bleeding, infertility, chronic infections in the urinary tract and
reproductive system, and increased hepatitis B and HIV/AIDS infection.
Between 100 million and 140 million girls and women
worldwide have undergone FGM, the great majority of them in a
handful of African countries (World Health Organization, 2001).
Some people think FGM enhances fertility and that women are
“unclean” and “masculine” if they have a clitoris. From this point
of view, women who have not experienced genital mutilation are
more likely to demonstrate “masculine” levels of sexual interest
and activity. They are less likely to remain virgins before marriage
and faithful within marriage.
One reaction to FGM takes a “human rights perspective.” In
this view, the practice is an aspect of gender-based oppression
that women experience to varying degrees in societies worldwide.
Adopting this perspective, the United Nations defines FGM as a
form of violence against women. Many international, regional, and
national agreements commit governments to preventing FGM, assisting
women at risk of undergoing it, and punishing people who
commit it. In the United States, the penalty for conducting FGM is
up to five years in prison.
Cultural relativists regard the human rights perspective as
ethnocentric. They view interference with the practice as little
more than neo-imperialist attacks on African cultures. From
their point of view, talk of “universal human rights” denies
cultural rights to less powerful peoples. Moreover, opposition
to FGM undermines tolerance and multiculturalism while reinforcing
racist attitudes. Cultural relativists therefore argue
that we should affirm the right of other cultures to practice
FGM, even if we regard it as destructive, senseless, oppressive,
and abhorrent. We should respect the fact that other
cultures regard FGM as meaningful and as serving useful
functions.
Critical Thinking
1. Which of these perspectives do you find more compelling?
2. Do you believe that certain principles of human decency
transcend the values of any specific culture? If so, what are
those principles?
3. If you do not believe in the existence of any universal
principles
of human decency, then does anything go?
4. Would you agree that, say, genocide is acceptable if most
people in a society favor it? Or are there limits to your cultural
relativism?
5. In a world where supposedly universal principles often clash
with the principles of particular cultures, where do you draw
the line?
democracy has been widened and deepened (see Chapter 12, “Politics, Work, and the
Economy”). The rights revolution is by no means finished. Many categories of people are
still discriminated
against socially, politically, and economically. However, in much of
the world, all categories
of people now participate more fully than ever before in the life
of their societies
(Ignatieff, 2000).
The rights revolution raises some difficult issues. For example, some members of
groups that have suffered extraordinarily high levels of discrimination historically, such
as Native Americans and African Americans, have demanded reparations in the form
of money, symbolic gestures, land, and political autonomy (see Chapter 8, “Race and
Ethnicity”).
Much controversy surrounds the extent to which today’s citizens are obligated
to compensate past injustices
Such problems notwithstanding, the rights revolution is here to stay and it affects
our culture profoundly. Specifically, the rights revolution fragments American culture by
(1) legitimizing the grievances of groups that were formerly excluded from full social participation,
and (2) renewing their pride in their identity and heritage. Our history books,
literature, music, use of languages, and our very sense of what it means to be American
have diversified culturally. White, male, heterosexual property owners of northern
European
origin are still disproportionately influential in the United States, but our
culture
is no longer dominated by them in the way that it was just a few decades ago.
From Diversity to Globalization
The cultural diversification we witness today is not evident in preliterate or tribal societies. In
such societies, cultural beliefs and practices are virtually the same for all group members.
For example, many tribal societies organize rites of passage. These cultural ceremonies
mark the transition from one stage of life to another (for example, from childhood to
adulthood) or from life to death (for example, funerals). They involve elaborate procedures
such as body painting and carefully orchestrated chants and movements. They are
often conducted in public, and no variation from prescribed practice is allowed. Culture
is homogeneous (Durkheim, 1976 [1915]).
In contrast, preindustrial Western Europe and North America were rocked by artistic,
religious, scientific, and political forces that fragmented culture. The Renaissance,
the
Protestant
Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the French and American Revolutions—
between the 14th and 18th centuries—all involved people questioning old ways of seeing
and doing things. Science placed skepticism about established authority
at the heart of its
method. Political revolution proved there was nothing ordained about who should rule
and how they should do so. Religious dissent ensured that the Catholic
Church would no
longer be the supreme interpreter of God’s will in the eyes of all Christians.
Authority and
truth became divided as never before.
Cultural fragmentation picked up steam during industrialization as the variety of
occupational roles grew and new political and intellectual movements crystallized. The
pace of cultural fragmentation is quickening again today in the postindustrial era as a
result of globalization, the process by which formerly separate economies, states, and
cultures are becoming tied together and people are becoming increasingly aware of their
growing interdependence.
One of the most important roots of globalization is the expansion of international trade
and investment. Even a business as “American” as McDonald’s now earns well over half its
profits outside the United States, and its international operations are growing much faster
than its U.S. outlets. At the same time, members of different ethnic and racial groups are
migrating and coming into sustained contact with one another. The number of influential
“transnational” organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the
European Union, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International, is multiplying. Relatively
inexpensive
international travel and communication make contacts between people from diverse
cultures routine. The mass media make Ryan Gosling and The Vampire
Diaries nearly as well
known in Warsaw as in Wichita. MTV brings rock music to the world via MTV Canada,
MTV Latino, MTV Brazil, MTV Europe, MTV Asia, MTV Japan, MTV Mandarin, and
MTV India (Hanke, 1998). In short, globalization destroys political, economic, and cultural
isolation. As a result of globalization, people are less obliged to accept the culture into which
they were born and are freer to combine elements of culture from a wide variety of historical
periods and geographical settings. Globalization is a schoolboy in New Delhi, India, listening
to Rihanna on his MP3 player as he rushes to slip into his Levis, wolf down a bowl of
Kellogg’s Basmati Flakes, and say good-bye to his parents in Hindi because he is late for his
English-language school.
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