NJAMBI - DUALISMS AND FEMALE BODIES IN REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICAN FEMALE CIRCUMCISION (2004)

Question 1

Many of those seeking the eradication of ‘FGM’ condemn them as…(3)

Answer 1

‘barbaric’

harmful to female bodies and sexuality

evidence of the universal oppression of women by men and male dominated social structures

Question 2

‘Female circumcision’ tends not to be used as it…

Answer 2

fails to capture the horror of the mutilation involved

Question 3

The centre maintained in anti-FGM discourse is subject to contradictory meanings, images and practices that carry legacies of colonial representations of ‘third world’ societies as…

Answer 3

‘savage’ and ‘barbaric’

whilst claiming to be pursuing their collective well-bein

Question 4

KRATZ 1994 - The practices of female circumcision now enter a new discourse of not only ‘women’s health and well-being’ (articulated within the rhetoric of western feminism), but also that of the ‘universal’..(2)

Answer 4

‘oppression of women’

‘male domination of women’

Question 5

Sensational stories told about the processes of African female circumcision, such as razor blades and the teeth of the midwife use, while not a single group is identified which employs such..

Answer 5

crude instruments

Question 6

History of colonialism and neo-colonialism has afforded the more powerful west the right to…

Answer 6

intervene in the lives of its ‘third world’ Others

Question 7

GOULD’S 1993 ‘hardline’ and ‘softline’

‘Hardliners’ are those who boldly state what they perceive as pure primitivity and barbarity of female circumcision, and are known for sensationalising stories designed to…

Answer 7

shock and horrify in order to push the audience into action

Question 8

GOULD’S 1993 ‘hardline’ and ‘softline’
Example of a hardliner - Hosken (1993), who coined ‘FGM’ - “it is men who determine what becomes a custom and finally a tradition in each society. The objective, which is quite openly stated by African and Middle Eastern men, is to…

Answer 8

deprive women’s sexual pleasure and to keep women under male control…”

Question 9

According to Hosken 1993 - “all the operations are performed without anaesthetic, often on struggling children held by force, frequently on the ground under highly septic conditions, using a…

Answer 9

variety of tools”

Question 10

GOULD’S 1993 ‘hardline’ and ‘softline’

‘Softliners’ are identified through their often sympathetic position that attempts to contextualise these practices in their…

Answer 10

cultural settings

Question 11

GOULD’S 1993 ‘hardline’ and ‘softline’

‘Softliners’ still presume that change requires an external catalyst from among the more culturally and economically developed, ‘modern’ society. While, they view that culture must be respected, intervention is needed to establish more…

Answer 11

‘appropriate/acceptable’ ways of living”

Question 12

Walley 1997:421
According to Kasinga (well-known case) “most young women in Togo are happy to have the procedure done and think it is something…

Answer 12

very great”

Question 13

Walley 1997 notes that the media was fixated on what it saw as an example of coercion and oppression in

Answer 13

African cultures and societies generally

Question 14

One problem with anti-FGM discourse is its refusal to recognise differences - ignoring the diversity of..

Answer 14

female circumcision’s forms and histories

Question 15

Njambi saw female circumcision as a ritual that marks the passage to womanhood, to demonstrate how ‘normality’ regarding bodies is…

Answer 15

culturally produced

Question 16

Njambi’s performed with a medical scalpel in a local clinic run by woman who was a trained nurse in the western sense and a relative of an important female medical healer and powerful leader of the early…

Answer 16

20th century

Question 17

Despite shifting cultural forms, circumcision still continued to be fundamentally important in that those who were circumcised were inscribed with the status and privilege of…

Answer 17

‘womanhood’