Is Female Genital Mutilation only practiced in Africa? No.

There are more than 130 million victims of Female Genital Mutilation in the world! Do we need more?

Not only in Africa, Female Genital Mutilation is practiced in Asia too. A large number of Bohra Muslim women in India and Pakistan are being genitally mutilated in secrecy.

World Health Organization says:

Female genital mutilation has no known health benefits. On the contrary, it is known to be harmful to girls and women in many ways. First and foremost, it is painful and traumatic. The removal of or damage to healthy, normal genital tissue interferes with the natural functioning of the body and causes several immediate and long-term health consequences. For example, babies born to women who have undergone female genital mutilation suffer a higher rate of neonatal death compared with babies born to women who have not undergone the procedure. end in stillbirth or spontaneous abortion, and in a further 25% the newborn has a low birth weight or serious infection, both of which are associated with an increased risk of perinatal death.

Communities that practice female genital mutilation report a variety of social and religious reasons for continuing with it. Seen from a human rights perspective, the practice reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. Female genital mutilation is nearly always carried out on minors and is therefore a violation of the rights of the child. The practice also violates the rights to health, security and physical integrity of the person, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

Female genital mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. There are different types of FGM.

Type I — Partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce (clitoridectomy).

When it is important to distinguish between the major variations of Type I mutilation, the following subdivisions are proposed: Type Ia, removal of the clitoral hood or prepuce only; Type Ib, removal of the clitoris with the prepuce.

Type II — Partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (excision).

When it is important to distinguish between the major variations that have been documented, the following subdivisions are proposed: Type IIa, removal of the labia minora only; Type IIb, partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora; Type IIc, partial or total removal of the clitoris, the labia minora and the labia majora.
Note also that, in French, the term ‘excision’ is often used as a general term covering all types of female genital mutilation.

Type III — Narrowing of the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting and appositioning the labia minora and/or the labia majora, with or without excision of the clitoris (infibulation).

Type IIIa, removal and apposition of the labia minora; Type IIIb, removal and apposition of the labia majora.

Type IV — All other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, for example: pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization.

FGM in Africa. Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria..

Mass mutilation.

Children’s blood

In Asia, the countries where female genital mutilation is practiced are Malaysia, Indonesia, southern parts of the Arab Peninsula, along the Persian Gulf, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, South Yemen and among some sects in India, Pakistan and Russia.

Bohra Muslims in India and Pakistan are mostly wealthy and educated. But they secretly mutilate their little girls. 70 percent or more among Bohra Muslims follow the practice of FGM. Dawoodi Bohra is a sub-sect of Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa Islām. They were persecuted in Yemen by both Shi’a and Sunni Muslims. They had to leave Yemen and took refuge in India. It is believed that they brought FGM culture from Yemen to India centuries ago.
A Bohra Muslim girl tells her story

Some Indian Bohra women started protesting against Female Genital Mutilation. Please sign the petition to ban FGM. Don’t forget it’s not a Bohra issue, It’s not a Muslim issue, it’s a Human Rights issue.


FGM in Indonesia.

FGM in Kurdistan

FGM for Muslim girls in UK

A reporter based in UK says, ‘UK fails to halt female genital mutilation. Parents used to take their daughters back to their country of origin for FGM during school holidays. Now-a-days ‘cutters’ are flown in from abroad to perform the illegal procedure in UK. Hundreds of British schoolgirls are facing the terrifying prospect of female genital mutilation (FGM) over Christmas holidays as experts warn the practice continues to flourish across the country.70,000 women living in the UK have undergone FGM, and 20,000 girls remain at risk. It is generally considered to be an essential rite of passage to suppress sexual pleasure, preserve girls’ purity and cleanliness, and is necessary for marriage in many communities even now. It has no religious significance.’

Summer holiday circumcision: Girls bodies at risk. Watch the video.

FGM should be banned all over the world, Now. We should not forget about the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Article 19 – 1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
Article 24 – 3. States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.
Article 37 – States Parties shall ensure that: a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…

Many countries banned FGM. But people continue practicing it. Many times, it is women unaware of their rights, commit the heinous crimes against women. Women are forced to prevent the misogynistic patriarchal system from becoming extinct. I wish they could just say, ‘We have enough! We’re not going to live in anti-women system anymore’! If women’s non-cooperation movement really starts, misogynist monsters will definitely be scared. We are half the world’s population. Aren’t we?

Did you ever think of sexualizing penile cancer, dude?

Many women have been fighting against sexualizing breast cancer. They are saying:

‘Sexualizing breast cancer reduces the serious disease to the realm of popular trends and reducing women to the quality of their physical appearance (again!). It probably implies that a woman without breasts is not a woman at all, making it so vital that her breasts be saved. It also implies that only women are the victims of this merciless disease promoting the misnomer that only women possess mammary glands and are susceptible to breast cancer.

Breast cancer campaigns use sexuality because breasts are constantly portrayed in the media as sexual entities. There is a something a little erotic about a woman being prescribed by her doctor to feel her breasts on a regular basis. Breast cancer, however, is not sexy nor is it fun. It is not the pink ribbon sporting, fun loving, laughing beauty in the advertisements. Its scary and sterile. Its full of hospitals and doctors and uncertainty.

The focus on breasts as sexual objects and breast cancer as the mortal enemy of breasts is demoralizing to women who get breast cancer. It emphasizes an elevated status that a woman’s breast has over her person and it reinforces importance that society places on these physical objects.

It is important for diseases that affect women be researched and studied. Breast cancer is incredibly important and needs public support, however that support should not come at the expense of women themselves’.

No other cancer is sexualized the way breast cancer is sexualized. Breast cancer should be taken equally seriously like other cancers.

Please raise awareness for all cancers, not only for breast cancer. People have been suffering from many different cancers and dying young. Some cancers can be prevented, and treatment works best when cancer is found early.

Penile Cancer:

Tongue Cancer:

Liver Cancer:

Male breast Cancer:

Lung Cancer:

Skin Cancer:

Prostate Cancer:

Stomach Cancer:

Cervical Cancer:

The Living Dead

Once upon a time widows were burned alive on their dead husband’s funeral pyres. It was believed that if a widow burn herself to death soon after her husband died, her husband would go to heaven and all his sins would be gone with the wind. Suttee or sati (“good woman” or “chaste wife”) was the Indian tradition of a widow burning herself. The practice of Sutee was banned in 1829.

‘Suttee was sometimes committed voluntarily, but cases of compulsion, escape, and rescue are known. Scattered instances of it continue to occur, most notoriously in the case of Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old widow who committed suttee in 1987. The incident was highly controversial, as groups throughout India either publicly defended Kanwar’s actions or declared that she had been murdered.’

Religion supports widow burning.

‘The most sacred of Hindu scriptures are the Vedas, and the Rig Veda, the oldest Veda, explicitly sanctions the custom of Sati. The following famous `Sati Hymn’ of the Rig Veda has been recited during the actual immolation of the widow . Rig Veda 10.18.7 : ” Let these women, whose husbands are worthy and are living, enter the house with ghee (applied) as corrylium ( to their eyes). Let these wives first step into the pyre, tearless without any affliction and well adorned.’

Rise, come unto the world of life, O woman — come, he is lifeless by whose side thou liest. Wifehood with this thy husband was thy portion, who took thy hand and wooed thee as a lover. (RV 10.18.8)

The Garudapurana favourably mentions the immolation of a widow on the funeral pyre, and states that women of all castes, even the Candalla woman, must perform Sati. The only exceptions allowed by this benevolent author is for pregnant women or those who have young children. If women do not perform sati, then they will be reborn into the lowly body of a woman again and again till they perform Sati. [ Garuda.Purana. II.4.91-100 ]

* A sati who dies on the funeral pyre of her husband enjoys an eternal bliss in heaven [ Daksa Smrti IV.18-19 ] [ Sm.Samu p.30 ] [ 1200, p.65 ]

* According to Vasishta’s Padma-Purana, a woman must, on the death of her husband, allow herself to be burnt alive on the same funeral pyre

* Yajnavalkya, the most important law-giver after Manu, states that sati is the only way for a chaste widow [ Apastamba.I.87 ] [ 1200, p.65 ]

* The Yogini Tantra enjoins upon Brahmana widows to burn themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands [ Yog.T. II.303-308 ]. Vaisya and Sudra widows were also allowed to do it. It was prohibited to unchaste women and those having many children. [ 1200, p.67 ]

* The Vyasa Smrti gives one of the two alternatives for a Brahmana widow, ie. either to become a sati or to take up ascetism after her tonsure [ Vyasa Sm. II.53 ] [ Sm.S. p.362 ]

Further, the Vishnusmirti gives only two choices for the widow:

Vishnu Smirti.XXV.14 : “If a woman’s husband dies, let her lead a life of chastity, or else mount his pyre”

— [ Vis.Sm. xxv.14 ] [ Clay.13 ]

Brahma is one of the main Aryan gods, being the creator of the world ( later he was identified as an incarnation of Vishnu ). One of the Puranas is named after him, the Brahma Purana. Like other Puranas, it was composed after the Vedas ( Pandits hold 4000 B.C., Indologists 700 B.C.) This scripture also sanctions sati:

Brahma Purana.80.75 : ” It is the highest duty of the woman to immolate herself after her husband “.

Long life is promised to the sati:

Brahma Purana.80.76, 80.77 : ” She [ the sati ] lives with her husband in heaven for as many years as there are pores in the human body, ie. for 35 million years.”

— [ Br.P. 80.76, 80.77 ] [ Sheth 103 ]

Vishnu Dharmasutra XXV.14 contains the statement: ” On her husband’s death, the widow should observe celibacy or should ascend the funeral pyre after him.”

Remember Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Last Suttee?

Widows are excluded from society.
There is a ceremony during the funeral of husband. Widows smash their bangles, remove their vermilion, colorful clothes and all jewelries they have been wearing. Widows have to wear simple white clothes. They are forced to shave their heads. They are not allowed to eat fish, meat, eggs, milk, onions, garlic and many different kinds of vegetable, animal products and spices. They have to fast many times a month. Widows are not thrown on the funeral pyres these days, but they are thrown on some other kinds of pyres. That is not any less traumatic.

There are more than 40 million widows in India. Most of them are ‘living dead’.

A widow’s family members would be excluded from the society if they didn’t respect to the restrictions society impose on widows. A widow is considered a bad omen, she is excluded from all auspicious events. In some cases even her shadow is considered polluting or offensive to society.

‘In India, widows are an invisible community. Although many widows are treated less harshly nowadays, they still face discrimination and neglect. People treat widowhood not as a natural stage in the life cycle of a woman, they treat it as some kind of an aberration. People accept death but do not accept widowhood. “Because somewhere in the Indian psyche, the woman’s identity is with the man and the minute he’s not there, it’s something that cannot be accepted.” Women are not considered as separate human beings. Your husband is dead, you are dead. The suffering of widows is one of the brutal consequences of patriarchy.

Shunned from society, widows flock to Vrindaban and Varanasi, pilgrimage towns to die. Young widows are often sexually exploited. Older women beg at temple gates. Some go to Ashrams where they chant prayers. For a four hour chant they can earn a cup of rice and 7 rupees( 12 cents).’

‘Hindu widows are not supposed to remarry. With little social or economic status, many become destitute. The truth is, women do not lose their dignity and basic rights when they lose their husbands. But our anti-women society do not like to think about women’s basic human rights.

What happens when a man’s wife dies? Is he treated as a bad omen? Is he excluded from all auspicious events? Does he stop eating certain food and stop wearing colorful clothes? Is he sent to a lonely place where he has nothing to do but to wait for his death? No. Men don’t get abandoned, they remarry young women and start a new life.

You can always watch Water, a great movie. The story of an eight-year-old widow.

Men hate woman’s body

Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies. Men and media have been busy for centuries advising women what they should look like.

Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long. Most women keep their hair long even though many of them feel comfortable having short hair. They use different chemicals to make their hair silky.

Men do not like the color of our skin. So we bleach our skin or get our skin tanned. We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves and become someone men want us to become. We want to make men feel satisfied.

Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.

Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, noses, lips, cheeks, necks, ears. Women paint their eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries around our necks, we pierce our noses and ears to wear ornaments.

Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk.

Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die.

Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.
Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow or not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.

Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural.

Men hate our legs. So we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller. Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure.

Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals or all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams on our faces. I wonder whether people really believe chemicals or creams can stop natural aging process!

We even go for face-lifting and different plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like we grow older.

We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us. There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society, causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.

Men are crazy for hymen, a thin tiny membrane

Millions of men are crazy to sleep with virgins. They marry children because children are most likely to be virgins. Men go to brothels and pay a lot of money only to fuck 5 to 10-year-old children. Men love hymen that surrounds or partially covers the external vaginal opening.

The man who created Islam knew about the desire of men to have sex with virgins. He tempted men whoever convert to Islam with seventy two virgins.

 

In some parts of the world a white bed sheet is put on the bed to see virgin’s blood on the first night of wedding. Women are forced to give proof of their chastity. Female ‘purity’ is an asset for patriarchy.Unfortunately their Purity, chastity, virginity, morality all are made available nowhere but in vagina. Women get divorced or tortured or even murdered if their hymens are not intact on wedding night.

Women were forced to wear chastity belts in medieval times.

They do not wear chastity belts made of Iron anymore. Today’s chastity belts are made of different or they are just invisible. There is no change in the mindset of controlling women. Male domination or patriarchy has reduced women the half of the world’s human population to mere sex objects.

Hymens can be broken because of physical exercises, tampons, traumas etc. But men are not ready to accept any torn hymen. Women have to give their husbands or masters or lords the proof of their virginity. Before wedding, out of fear women rush to doctors for having hymenoplasty or hymenorrhaphy. Women’s dignity and honor are based on whether or not their hymens are intact.

Women’s sexuality has never been a private thing. It has always been the property of men and society. They throws stones towards women if their hymens are broken.

 

Women are also forced to have a hymenoplasty to tighten vagina so that men can feel that they are having sex with teens or children. Doctors are now becoming expert in tightening vagina or restoring virginity. Women have been taught for centuries not to have respect for themselves. They are taught to hate their own bodies. They are taught to live for men and men only.

What if women did not have but men had hymens covering their penises! Men would face no problems if men’s hymens were broken because of horse back riding or masturbation or sex or something else. Would women ever ask men to give proof of their virginity? No. Rupturing hymens would be a man’s proof of masculinity. Men would be treated as uncouth and retard if their hymens remained intact after puberty.

 

 

Sexism still exists!

“Woman is not born: she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed. She becomes symbol of this, symbol of that: mother of the earth, slut of the universe; but she never becomes herself because it is forbidden for her to do so.”
― Andrea Dworkin


“Femininity is wearing shoes that make it difficult to run, skirts that inhibit movement, and underclothes that interfere with blood circulation. It can hardly be coincidental that the clothes men find most flattering on a woman are precisely those that make it most difficult for her to defend herself against aggression.”
― Suzanne Brøgger

“The “feminine” woman is forever static and childlike. She is like the ballerina in an old-fashioned music box, her unchanging features tiny and girlish, her voice tinkly, her body stuck on a pin, rotating in a spiral that will never grow.”
― Susan Faludi

We know about sexist advertisements of the past. Happy housewives could not drive cars but could push vacuum cleaners.Time has changed, women are not anymore forced to be slaves of men in many societies. They are allowed to be educated and become independent. Most countries in the world adopted United Nation’s The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). But sexism still exists.

The vintage sexist advertisements in the 50’s and ’60s were demeaning but the modern sexist advertisements are not any less demeaning.


Sexism Then:


Sexism now:

Should men and women let sexism continue to exist?

Bravo, France!

“The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race. ” –Susan B. Anthony

“Men rule because women let them. Male misogyny is real enough, and it has dreadful consequences, but female misogyny is what keeps women out of power.” – Germaine Greer

There is a tendency to compare women with snails. Some people in UK say, ‘A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in 212 years, just slightly longer than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in Parliament.’ But women are not like snails. Male-dominated systems always prevent women from going ahead.

Today women constitute 19 percent of the members of parliaments around the world. Women have been deprived of equal access to education, health care, capital,decision making powers in the political, social, and business sectors only because they are women. The number of women in politics is now growing but the speed is very slow. But we need a gender balance in political institutions. The introduction of quota systems for women represents a qualitative jump into a policy of exact goals. Many people are against quotas for women. But there are many people who believe that:

‘Quotas for women do not discriminate, but compensate for actual barriers that prevent women from their fair share of the political seats.
Quotas imply that there are several women together in a committee or assembly, thus minimizing the stress often experienced by the token women.
Women have the right as citizens to equal representation.
Women’s experiences are needed in political life.
Election is about representation, not educational qualifications.
Women are just as qualified as men, but women’s qualifications are downgraded and minimized in a male-dominated political system.
It is in fact the political parties that control the nominations, not primarily the voters who decide who gets elected; therefore quotas are not violations of voters’ rights.
Introducing quotas may cause conflicts, but may be only temporarily.
Quotas can contribute to a process of democratization by making the nomination process more transparent and formalized.’

Most quotas aim at increasing women’s representation. Among different types of quotas, voluntary party quotas are the best. Political parties should nominate women as 50% of the candidates for elections.

How many women are in parliaments of different countries? In Nordic countries 42.0%, Americas 22.7%, Europe 20.9%, Sub-Saharan Africa 19.8%, Asia 18.8%, Pacific Islands 12.4%, Arab States 11.7%.

Percentage of women in national parliaments: Rwanda 56.3%,Cuba 45.2%, Sweden 44.7%, Finland 42.5%,The Netherlands 40.7%, Nicaragua 40.2%, Iceland 39.7%, Norway 39.6%, Denmark 39.1%, Costa Rica 38.6%, Belgium 38.0%, Nepal 33.2%, Afghanistan 27.7%, Iraq 25.2%, Australia 24.7%, Pakistan 22.5%, UK 22.3%, China 21.3%, Bangladesh 19.7%, United Arab Emirates 17.5%, USA 16.9%, Ireland 15.1%, Russian Federation 13.6%, India 11.0%, Japan 10.8%, SriLanka 5.8%, Myanmar 3.5%, Egypt 2.0%, Yemen 0.3%, Kuwait 0.0%, Qatar 0.0%, Saudi Arabia 0.0% etc.

Only 18.9% women were in the French parliament.

Everything has changed just a few days ago. New French president appointed a government that contains equal numbers of women and men for the first time in France. French women didn’t get the right to vote before 1945. Like all feminist organizations I salute the French president for the appointment of a women’s rights minister. Every country should have a women’s rights minister until women get complete equality.

Women now take half of posts in French cabinet. French women have character, confidence, courage. They can change the world.

”Islam gives women freedom!”

Most people say, women choose to wear the burqa. Why hasn’t a single man ever chosen to wear the burqa if it is a matter of choice?

I have heard that under the burqa it’s an Italian woman who recently converted to Islam.

How can they bear such a humiliation! Is it because they, too, believe that women are born with the wrong gender!

They are women, inferior beings. They are slaves, men’s private properties. They have to feel ashamed of their bodies. They have to hide their bodies because they are objects who can stir men’s sexual thoughts. Every woman is a potential inducement to sin. Women are filthy, faceless. They are mobile prisons. Islamists, apologists for Islam, and some human rights organizations including Amnesty International are against burqa ban. They think women’s prisons are women’s freedom.

Let’s help women who are forced to wear the burqa, a symbol of oppression. Let’s help massively brainwashed women who wear the burqa for different silly reasons: Religious obligation, cultural tradition, religious freedom, exhibition of political Islam.