Breast Ironing

Just as the Western world finds the courage and strength of conviction to confront the disgusting practice of female genital mutilation, news emerges of an almost equally horrific form of cultural cruelty originating in the Central African Republic of Cameroon.

Breast ironing is the attempt to suppress the development of breast tissue in pubescent girls by using hard and often heated objects to literally flatten any signs of such development. Usually, this is carried out by the girl's mother who does so in the belief that it will protect her child from sexual harassment, rape, and early pregnancy that would tarnish the family name and prevent the girl from completing her education. 

Thus, as so often with the moral stylization of the flesh, breast ironing is a bad act carried out with good intentions; i.e., a form of violent physical abuse inflicted in the name of love.

The most commonly used implement for breast ironing is a wooden pestle, normally reserved for the pounding of tubers. Sometimes, however, other tools are used, including coconut shells, grinding stones, and hammers that have first been heated over coals. It is widely practiced throughout Cameroon and is also found in neighbouring countries and millions of girls have had to endure this extremely painful torture which can have serious and lasting physical and psychological effects.

And now, thanks to mass immigration and multiculturalism, breast ironing is here in Europe too, imported by the Cameroonian diaspora keen to retain their native traditions. 

Ultimately, there's very little to be said - even though there is clearly an urgent need for something to be done. One might suggest that those parents who are so concerned about protecting the honour of their female offspring that they are prepared to crush budding breasts and/or mutilate genitalia shouldn't be allowed to have baby girls in their care. But this might only lead some to mistakenly think I'm condoning female infanticide, which is a whole other (if clearly related) problem.

It shouldn't be, but, unfortunately, the words It's a girl are often heard in many parts of the world as a license not only to maim, but to kill. 

Say No to Female Genital Mutilation

 
Although some aspects of Mary Daly's work are problematic, I think she's fully justified in identifying female genital mutilation (along with other practices which serve to inscribe patriarchal values upon the body) as a re-enactment of goddess murder, or a symbolic form of gynocide.

This deeply depressing form of religious and cultural cruelty is still inflicted on large numbers of girls and young women throughout the world and, whilst it can take several forms, it's essentially a violent attempt to construct a model of passive female sexuality founded upon the deadening or destruction of the clitoris.

Why? Because the clitoris is understood to be an impure organ that not only lacks any reproductive function, but doesn't serve male purposes either. In fact, the clitoris exists exclusively as an organ of female pleasure and empowerment and so might be regarded as a challenge to the authority of the phallus. And clearly, that can't be allowed. 

Daly quotes from an African tribal leader explaining to a Western anthropologist why clitoridectomy is a good thing for young women about to be married: when it has been removed, he says, they no longer feel the childish desire to masturbate and they discover that true happiness comes from vaginal penetration by a husband. Daly describes this piece of tribal wisdom as brutish and one-dimensional. 

But before we congratulate ourselves in the West for our more sophisticated thinking on the subject, we should remember that psychoanalysis also views female sexuality as infantile and polymorphously perverse; i.e., as something that refuses to circulate within designated coordinates and so remains disconcerting, if not actually threatening. Freud too - like the witch doctor - wanted to centre everything in the vagina, regarded as an absence awaiting to be filled by any available prick.    

And we might also mention the contemporary phenomenon of plastic surgery, which offers labia trimming, vaginal reshaping, and even hymen reconstruction. The clinics carrying out such procedures may speak about improving the look, feel, and function of female genitalia and pretend that such procedures are all about boosting a woman's confidence and self-esteem, but everyone knows that this manifestation of pornographic idealism is all about enhancing male pleasure, making money, and making women feel ashamed of their own bodies.

Ultimately, whether it's done with a rusty razor blade, or the latest laser technology, female genital mutilation is a form of sex abuse.