The ritual of clitoridectomy in the developing world is a topic that from time to time attracts the attention of the Western media and provokes almost universal admonishment from the public.1
There tend to be two types of reaction to clitori- dectomy. First, those who defend universal human rights are for strict prohibition
of this ritual; and second, those who insist on the right to cultural differences usually still oppose clitoridectomy while stating that, however appalling they may find the practice, Westerners have no right to impose their standards on non- Western cultures. Things get even more complicated when the Westerners realize that the rituals of clitoridectomy are performed not only in Africa or Asia, but also among the immigrants in the middle of New York, London, Paris. Here the legal prohibition of the ritual has no real effect, since clitoridectomy is never performed as a public act, but as a secret ritual. From the Western point of view, it is shocking that something like this happens in democratic societies.2
And it is also surprising that the development of global capitalism has not contributed to the extinction of clitoridectomy; on the contrary, in some countries the practice has become even more widespread in recent years. How can we explain this fact?
Women from the ethnic groups that support such initiation rites usually claim that this practice is part of their ethnic identity and has been performed by their ancestors, and that by carrying on with the initiation rituals they are essentially contributing to the survival of their tradition. When the members of such ethnic groups migrate to the West, they insist on their right to protect their identity through the performance of clitoridectomies. Women also claim that if they have not been initiated via clitoridectomy they cannot get married; and mothers who submit their daughters to this ritual usually state: ‘If it was good for me, it will also be good for my daughter.’
While Westerners fear that the habits of immigrant non-Westerners will shatter the Western way of life, the immigrants complain that the Western states’ prohib- ition of certain initiation rituals endangers their ethnic identity. It is thus not only Westerners who see the danger of the erosion of their culture in others (that is, the immigrant cultures); the immigrant groups also perceive themselves as endangered by the dominant Western cultures.
The case of clitoridectomy creates many dilemmas that go far beyond a simple decision as to whether one is against or in favour of this ritual. The question is: What role does clitoridectomy play in the formation of women’s sexual identity and how essential is this ritual for transmission of sexual norms from generation to generation? A further implicit question is: How does sexual difference inscribe itself in pre-modern and in modern societies, and how is one to understand a return to the body mutilation that occurs in post-modern society, for example in the case of some practices of body art?
Let me first summarize the explanations given by the supporters of clitori- dectomy as to why this ritual needs to be preserved. Although different ethnic groups usually justify clitoridectomy with different mythologies, one can make some basic comparisons. A widespread belief is that clitoridectomy assures women’s fertility. Various mythologies take the clitoris as something impure and dangerous for the future child. The clitoris is also taken as a rival to a man’s phallus. In Ethiopia, for example, one finds a belief that the uncut clitoris grows to the size of a man’s penis and thus prevents insemination. And the Bambara from Mali claim that a man who has intercourse with an uncircumcised woman might die, since the clitoris produces poisonous liquid. They also believe that at the time 22 Renata Salecl
of birth one finds in the child both female and male traces. The clitoris is the trace of the male in the female and the prepuce is the trace of the female in the male. In order to clearly define the child’s sex, one therefore needs to extinguish the trace of the opposite sex via male and female circumcision.
Other justifications for clitoridectomy stress the importance of group identity. A woman who is submitted to this ritual becomes the equal of other women in her ethnic group – she is thus accepted in her community. The circumcised woman finds ‘the feeling of pride in being like everyone else, in being “made clean”, in having suffered without screaming’.3 For women, to be different, i.e., unexcised or
noninfibulated, produces anxiety: such a woman may be ridiculed and despised by the others, and she will also be unable to marry in her community.
Some ethnic groups also claim that clitoridectomy protects women from their excessive sexuality. This ritual thus makes women faithful. Since excised women are supposed to be less sexually demanding, men can have many wives and keep them all satisfied. Others argue the opposite: the excised woman is supposed to be more inclined to have extramarital affairs, since she is always sexually unsatisfied. But, a very common position is that clitoridectomy helps to retain a woman’s virginity, which is especially important in the communities that make virginity the absolute prerequisite of marriage and in which women’s extramarital affairs are strongly condemned.
Some defenders of clitoridectomy also claim that this ritual needs to be under- stood as an aesthetic practice: the infibulated woman’s sexual organ is supposed to be much more attractive than the noninfibulated one. And the most beautiful organ is the one that, after the scar is healed, feels smooth like a palm.4
Why do women who are submitted to the torturous practice of clitoridectomy not rebel against it, why do they calmly accept mutilation of their genitals, and why do they force their daughters to do the same? The problem is not simply that women live in patriarchal societies in which they have no power to express their disagreement with the rituals. Many cultures that perform clitoridectomy are not classical patriarchies – in some cultures men are even perceived as quite powerless (see Heald 1994; Bloch 1986) – and often much authority is in the hands of the older women, who are cherished as authority figures and as guardians of trad- ition, which is why these women are entrusted with the task of performing the ritual of clitoridectomy. The dilemma of why women support clitoridectomy thus primarily concerns the position the subject has in his or her culture, that is, the way the subject is entangled in his or her community.
Max Horkheimer (1972) pointed out how, with the advent of the Enlighten- ment type of patriarchal family, one can discern a process of individualization that does not exist in the pre-modern family. The modern subject is, of course, linked to his or her tradition, family, national community, but this tradition is no longer something that fully determines the subject and gives him or her stability and security. The modern subject is expelled from his or her community – this subject is an individual who has to find and reestablish his or her place in the community again and again. That modern society no longer stages the ritual of initiation means that the subject must ‘freely’ choose his or her place in the From clitoridectomy to body art 23
community, although this choice always remains in some way a forced choice. As we know from psychoanalysis, the subject who does not ‘choose’ his or her place in the community becomes a psychotic – a subject who feels themselves external to the community yet is not barred by language.
But this forced choice to become a member of the community also enables the subject to experience some actual freedom, for example, to reject the rituals of his or her community. Only when the subject is no longer perceived as someone who essentially contributes to the continuation of his or her tradition and is completely rooted in his or her community does the moment emerge when the subject can distance himself or herself from this community, for example, by criticizing its rituals. Western feminists justly take clitoridectomy to be a horribly painful prac- tice. However, one can arrive at such position only after going through the process of individualization, that is, only when the subject has already made a break with his or her tradition.
When we say that in pre-modern society subjects are not yet individualized and are thus unable to distance themselves from the tradition, this does not mean that when people support clitoridectomy today they are falling back to the level of pre- modern family organization. On the contrary, the return to old traditions needs to be understood as a way subjects deal with the deadlocks of the highly individual- ized contemporary society. Thus, when people propagate old initiation rituals they are not simply nostalgic for the past or unable to oppose their tradition (usually they are quite willing to give up many other rituals and prohibitions), but rather they are trying to find some stability in today’s disintegrating social universe.
There are various ways subjects deal with individualization in contemporary society. A young punk, for example, seems to respond to individualization by taking it to the extreme: he or she adopts an ultra-individualized stance and constantly searches for new decorations for his or her body to create a unique image. Such a punk makes an effort to dress differently from the dominant fashion trends, but then he or she also strongly identifies with some peer group. The punk’s response to individualization is thus finally a formation of another group ideology. Although this ideology encourages people to look different from each other, it none the less quickly forms new fashion codes. In contrast, an African immigrant might respond to radical individualization by strongly identifying with his or her ethnic tradition. In this case, too, group identity, paradoxically, appears as a solution to the difficulties of individualization. If individualization first hap- pens when the subject makes a break with tradition, the deadlocks that accompan- ies individualization incites either a return to tradition or a formation of some new group identity.