I have this thing about traditions. That is, I’m not one of those individuals who will follow a tradition because It has “always been done that way.”
This story from Newsweek is one of the primary reasons why:
One day, when Sila Folow was an 8-year-old girl living in Mali, four elderly women held her down on the dirt floor of an outhouse and, in keeping with local tradition, used a sharp blade to cut out her clitoris and most of her labia. Her grandmother and other villagers held a celebration. Sila, bleeding and in terrible pain, could not walk for weeks. Like millions of other African girls who are forced to undergo female genital mutilation–a ritual many women say is intended to ensure that they grow up to become sexually passive wives who will not stray from their husbands–Sila never recovered. She eventually moved to New York, married, and had two children. But she was reluctant to have sex with her husband. It hurt, and the scarring made it impossible for her to feel pleasure.
…
The doctors wheeled her to the operating room, anesthetized her and got to work. Dr. Bowers cut away the thick scar tissue that had formed over Sila’s wound and had obscured the remains of her clitoris. She then scraped away layers of a black, sooty material–the decades-old remnants of the ash poultice the local women had used to stop the bleeding. It had caused a low-grade infection that still hadn’t healed–one reason Sila was always in pain. “They really got her good,” Bowers said, shaking her head behind her surgical mask. Bowers used a cauterizing tool to quickly stop a sudden rush of blood. “That’s arterial blood flowing there,” she said. “You can see why so many girls have died after circumcisions.” The root of the clitoris, which extends several centimeters beneath the surface of a woman’s skin,is much larger than most people–and for many years scientists–ever suspected. Bowers exposed the remaining flesh of the organ and drew it out, securing it in place with delicate stitches that eventually dissolve. Finally, Bowers also did some cosmetic work to restore the appearance of Sila’s labia.
Although traditions and rituals can bind us as families or as members of the same group, we need to always be questioning the motives behind our comfort. When we discover that these activities are physically or emotionally limiting others, we need to be prepared to either stop the tradition or be willing to revamp it so that it does no harm.
We also need to give thanks to the Dr. Marci Bowers of the world — those who see a wrong and work to correct it.
