Readers Blog: Genital mutilation is not ‘female circumcision’
It is disgraceful that RTÉ’s Prime Time and The Irish Times gave platforms to an apologist for the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM).
The euphemism used for the mutilation of a girl was “female circumcision” and an argument was made that it was sometimes necessary.
By insidiously allowing the suggestion that FGM was comparable to male circumcision, two powerful media outlets in Ireland have (perhaps unwittingly) undermined women, everywhere.
Try this thought experiment. Imagine you are a boy of six and your father, or your grandfather, forcibly holds you down while a religious man cuts off the tip of your penis. I mean the most sensitive part. Not just the foreskin.
Now, imagine growing up with a lifetime of genitourinary problems and, due to the scarring, enduring always painful sex.
By taking a blade to a girl’s clitoris, you cut up her soul.
