PENIS ENVY?

Here's another horrid ‘slice’ of hypocrisy. Examine the attitudes of to the butchery of young boy's genitals, commonly known as traditional circumcision; measured against the response to traditional female circumcision, now called female genital mutilation.
Questions instantly arise…
Why the semantic trickery? Why is circumcision not referred to as male genital mutilation? The number of deaths, disfigurement and long-term physical and psychological damage wrought on the young men more than qualifies the practice as ‘mutilation’. So why genderize it? Simple, by redefining female circumcision as genital mutilation, it suddenly becomes a women’s issue and a ‘further example of female oppression’. Feminism can use this phenomenon to further consolidate women’s status as ‘universal victim’, therefore demand the very profitable support of governments, academia, NGO’s, the WHO and the UN, who provide media platforms and massive amounts of funding for their ‘cause’. It seems that when suffering is concerned, only women are allowed to complain or profit from it. 
So the popular opinion is that women suffer far more from circumcision? Yet, I don't remember the headline that read "FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION SCHOOL LEADS TO DEATH OF THIRTY GIRLS AND HOSPITALIZING OF 300".  Not this year. Not any year.
In South Africa we have a crisis. The headlines which detail this socially sanctioned, organised, large scale, systematic butchery; horrific tales of death, mutilation and tragedy resulting from this so-called cultural practice, arise every year around this time. And how does society respond? In the media, we hear the same justifications espoused by hand-wringing, pinched-faced politicians and journalists:   

·         Oh, well do it in more sanitary conditions...use professionals. 

·         Let's use technology to make it easier and safer to do.

·         Oh, let’s regulate the Circumcision Schools

·         There is a livelihood made in Traditional Circumcision schools.

·         Circumcision is culturally accepted in traditional circles as a rite of passage.

·         There are health benefits.

It suggests the following logic. Circumcision is acceptable as long as or because:

·         we write it into law,

·         we monitor and regulate it,

·         we make an ‘honest’ income out of it,

·         we develop technology to do it better,

·         We claim it as ‘tradition’.

Frequently disputed health benefits aside, if we used the same logic to advocate traditional female circumcision; that is make it legal, regulate it, develop technology to improve it, make money from it, or simply accept it because its tradition, ‘society’ would erupt. The likelihood of an auspicious reception to this line of though, is about as about the same as the likelihood of the mass promotion of men's face creams out of infant female genital offal'. (Oprah seems to think baby foreskin cream is just the thing for ironing out the wear and tear on her face from all those years of laughing all the way to the bank).
A few simple truths:

·         A woman’s perceived or actual suffering is unacceptable.

·         Only women can complain and be heard, and therefore profit from the same.

·         Men or boys must suffer. Their complaints might be heard…sometime…someday…something might be done…unless we can interview the women and girls who ‘suffer’ as a result, and turn the death of a young man from a bleed-out as the result of a penile amputation, into a story about how much his mother suffered.