‘Why did I circumcise him?’ Unexpected comparisons to male circumcision in a qualitative study on female genital cutting among Kurdish

Abstract

Based on fieldwork that aimed to gather more knowledge on female genital cutting among Kurdish–Norwegians, in this article we report on how research participants would often talk about male circumcision instead. Informed by current scholarship and public discourse on female genital cutting and male circumcision, we identified three themes when analysing how and why the participants would talk about male circumcision rather than female genital cutting: (1) the condemnation of female genital cutting; (2) the acceptability of male circumcision and (3) the questioning of the acceptability of male circumcision. We do not attempt to provide solutions to whether some forms of male circumcision are less, equally or more harmful than some forms of female genital cutting, or whether they are comparable and both should thus either be legitimized or banned. Rather we aim to provide insights into these dilemmas by the use of the concept of ‘mapping controversies’ associated with actor–network theory. We further make use of the slippery slope argument to explore how the research participants’ views shed light on political reluctance to treat female genital cutting and male circumcision in the same way in the Norwegian context. While we are not in a position to say that the views shared are the same in other social groups, or in other countries, we argue that the Norwegian government’s different treatment of female genital cutting and male circumcision changes the meaning of ritual boy circumcision and that this may result in parents deciding not to circumcise their sons.

Keywords

Male circumcision female genital mutilation female genital cutting Kurds Norway human rights gender equality

Introduction

In this article, we describe and analyse how research participants would often reflexively, and without prompting, bring up the subject of ritual male circumcision (MC) during the first author’s fieldwork on perceptions of female genital cutting (FGC) among Kurdish-Norwegians. FGC is defined as the medically unnecessary cutting of female genitalia (World Health Organization (WHO), 2018). The ritual circumcision of boys refers to the cutting of male genitalia, usually also done for cultural or religious reasons rather than out of medical necessity (Denniston et al., 2007; WHO, 2007). FGC is commonly categorized into four types by the WHO (2018): type I – cutting of the outer clitoris; type II – the partial or total removal of the outer clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora; type III/infibulation – narrowing the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal, with or without removal of the outer clitoris, and; type IV – all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Similarly, there is great variety in the practice of MC, ranging from removing parts of or the entire foreskin of the penis to a cutting in the urinary tube from the scrotum to the glans (Svoboda and Darby, 2008). The reasons for MC and FGC are dynamic, overlapping and multifarious. Cultural and religious rationales such as marriageability, perceptions of gender, coming-of-age rituals and religious texts are commonly put forward, and medical rationales such as hygiene are also made (e.g. Ahmadu, 2000; Darby and Svoboda, 2007).

Current scholarship on FGC and MC emphasizes a seemingly unresolvable dilemma in which parents and policymakers need to decide (e.g. Earp and Steinfeld, 2018; Hellsten, 2004; Johnsdotter et al., 2018; Shweder, 2013; Svoboda, 2013): (1) whether girls should have the same access to cultural identity-promoting genital rituals as boys by allowing a minor cutting or ‘pricking’ of their genitalia (e.g. Ahmadu, 2000; Arora and Jacobs, 2016; Cohen, 1997; Gordon, 2018; Onsongo, 2017; Van Howe, 2011) or (2) whether boys should be granted the same human rights as girls with the ritual cutting of their genitalia being regarded as a breach of the right to bodily integrity (e.g. Coene, 2018; Earp, 2016; Fox and Thomson, 2009; Johnson, 2010; Munzer, 2015; Shahvisi, 2016). In order to explore how discourses of FGC blend into understandings of MC, in this article we build on the slippery slope argument and the concept of ‘mapping controversies’ associated with actor–network theory (Latour, 2005; Lewis, 2007). By the use of this theoretical perspective, our aim is not to search for ‘order, rigor and pattern’ within dilemmas of FGC and MC, but rather to provide insight into what the dilemmas entail (Latour, 2005: 23). Hence, we do not attempt to answer, for example, whether some forms of MC are less, equally or more harmful than some forms of FGC, or whether they are comparable and both should thus either be legitimized or banned. In order to provide insights into these dilemmas, we make use of the slippery slope argument which holds that: (1) if action A occurs, this will contribute to the likelihood of B occurring and (2) B is very bad, therefore (3) we should try to make sure that A does not occur (Lewis, 2007). In our case, we define action A as political interventions that treat FGC and MC in the same way through, for example, equally banning or legitimizing both practices or providing similar guidelines for health care, and B as promoting stigmas such as intolerance towards Jews and Muslim or violence against girls and women. The Norwegian government is currently not treating MC and FGC in the same way and is thus avoiding action A (to treat MC and FGC similarly), which may be due to a fear of outcome B (promoting stigma). Towards this theoretical background, we explore how the research participants’ views shed light on political reluctance to act upon dilemmas of the cultural, religious, legal and medical similarities between FGC and MC. The practices are commonly referred to as MC and FGC/female genital mutilation/female circumcision in scholarship and public discourse, and in this article, we do so too. We also often use the terms ‘boy circumcision’ and ‘girl circumcision’ as these phrases were commonly used by the research participants. We believe this wording sheds light on a paradigm shift in how FGC and ritual MC have recently been conceptualized: that they are procedures conducted on children, not only females or males.

Controversies of female genital cutting and male circumcision at a global level

In 1979, the American feminist Fran Hosken (1979) coined the term ‘female genital mutilation’ in the now-infamous Hosken Report which was based on several case studies from African countries (Shell-Duncan and Hernlund, 2000). In referring to the practice as mutilation rather than circumcision, she conceptualized FGC as negative and differentiated it from MC. Prior to the 1980s, the circumcision of boys and girls was often treated as equal, where the motivation was to prepare children for joining religious or adult communities, for aesthetic purposes, or for other similar reasons (Caldwell et al., 1997; Johnsdotter et al., 2018; Prazak, 2016). The Hosken Report may have contributed to the logic of gender becoming a way to separate understandings of FGC from MC. At the same time, the first and second waves of feminism had established a global women’s rights agenda manifested in political bodies such as the United Nations. Even though it is not based on a clear theory of what gender-based violence constitutes, several governments and international organizations, most notably the WHO, have defined FGC as gender-based violence and a breach of human rights with severe health risks reflecting ‘deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, [it] constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women’ (WHO, 2018: cited as on website, brackets added; Public Policy Advisory Network on Female Genital Surgeries in Africa, 2012). While several activists have opposed MC, this opposition has not gained the same support as that of FGC in global public discourse (Bell, 2005; De Camargo et al., 2013). MC has often been framed in contrast to FGC, where religious, medical, sexual, legal, cultural and social arguments in support of MC are manifested as discursive ‘truths’ (Bell, 2005; Svoboda, 2013). However, the WHO has been criticized for ‘conducting two quite separate research projects: one to find evidence for the harm of [FGC], another to find evidence for the benefits of [MC]’ (Darby and Svoboda, 2007: 312, brackets added; see also Hodžić, 2013). Scholarship often discusses whether the health benefits of MC outweigh its risks (e.g. Bretthauer and Hem, 2015; Krill et al., 2011; Moses et al., 1998; Sneppen and Thorup, 2016). For example, the 2007 Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS/WHO recommendation that MC should ‘be considered an additional method of HIV prevention and should be rapidly scaled up in countries with low prevalence of circumcision and high prevalence of HIV’ has been recently considerably invested in (WHO, 2017: 1). This, and other health interventions promoting the health benefits of MC, has been criticized for being based on research with methodological shortcomings, and that other less-invasive methods such as safe sex practices and basic hygiene can be used instead of MC, and that research on health benefits of adult MC is often applied in arguing for benefits of ritual circumcision of boys (Frisch and Earp, 2018). The political scientist, Debra DeLaet (2009: 421), further draws attention to how the variety in the different types of FGC and MC is often neglected by arguing that the medical harms ‘associated with the most common form of female circumcision, [can be] very similar to the health risks of male circumcision’. The religious argument that MC is often described as compulsory in Islam and Judaism, and FGC as voluntarily or unnecessary, has also been questioned. Scholarship has emphasized that it is an interpretation of religious texts that construct a socio-cultural discourse that MC and FGC may or may not be a religious requirement (e.g. Abu-Sahlieh, 1994; Brusa and Barilan, 2009; Davis, 2001; Duivenbode and Padela, 2019; Earp et al., 2017). Perhaps as a way to reconcile the often contradictory medical, religious, cultural and moral arguments, some academics have placed both practices within the framework of children’s experiences and rights to bodily autonomy as a way to compare them (e.g. Abu-Sahlieh, 2001; Brussels Collaboration on Bodily Integrity, 2019; Denniston et al., 2007; Dustin, 2010; Earp, 2015; Mason, 2001; Townsend, 2019).

Female genital cutting and male circumcision in the Norwegian context

The influx of Somali refugees to Norway around 1990 led to the extensive focus on promoting the abandonment of FGC through political interventions, research, and media debates (Bråten and Elgvin, 2014; Teigen and Langvasbråten, 2009). This focus has been directed towards the Somali population in particular, as they constitute about half of the population affected by FGC in Norway (Ziyada et al., 2016). Initially, FGC was understood as a health problem, and in 1995 it became illegal to let a girl be circumcised after arrival (The Lovdata Foundation, 1995). Girls or women with FGC are currently entitled to a medical examination to assess health needs and health care (The Norwegian Directorate of Health, 2016). Rather than specifying a similar entitlement to health care for those who experience health complications resulting from MC, MC was first regulated by the law on January 1 2015, through the implementation of act no. 40 of June 20 2014, relating to the circumcision of boys (The Norwegian Directorate of Health, 2014). This act aimed to regulate the practice in order to reduce the risks (such as death) associated with ritual MC, requiring a medical doctor to be present and the procedure to be done in hygienic conditions with necessary pain relief (The Norwegian Directorate of Health, 2014). Despite many critical responses to the legal aspects of this medicalization of boy circumcision from different stakeholders during the hearing process, the Norwegian Directorate of Health did not consider the practice to be criminal based on the claim that ‘ritual circumcision has been practiced in Norway for a long time’ (The Norwegian Directorate of Health, 2011: 6, our translation). This statement may seem odd, as the majority population in Norway do not practice MC. At the time of the policy change in 2014, there was a debate in the media surrounding the ritual circumcision of boys. The discussion was sparked by the death of a two-week-old baby who had lost too much blood after he was circumcised in a medical facility (Aftenposten, 2012). Perhaps because of this, the Ombudsman for Children Norway, together with other Nordic experts, called for a ban on MC in minors (Nordic Ombudsmen for Children, 2013). Moreover, this legislation caused debate in The Norwegian Medical Association on whether there was sufficient medical evidence in the research literature to support that the medical benefits of MC outweigh its potential health risks, and whether it should be required that boys be old enough to consent to the health risks of such a medical operation (see the comment and replies to Bretthauer and Hem, 2015). Even though MC and FGC are not practiced by the majority population in Norway, it seems that to act upon and to treat MC in the same way as FGC is problematic as it is also a tradition that ‘we’ practice in the so-called West (Johnson, 2010; Shweder, 2013).

Theoretical framework: The slippery slope of the circumcision controversies

The Kurdish men and women who participated in this study lived in a geographic region where MC and FGC are practiced before moving to a country where both are uncommon among the majority population. The references to boy circumcision in their descriptions of FGC took place at intersections of knowledge paradigms related to gender, children and genitalia. When such competing worldviews meet, the exploration of controversies can help unpack how differing social worlds seek to ‘draw and redraw the boundary between science and non-science’ (Garrety, 1997: 731). One of the proponents of actor–network theory, the French philosopher, sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour (2005), argues that, in attempts to understand the social world, no given controversy should be settled beforehand. Rather, the actors should express their, often competing and counterintuitive, understandings of the controversies of which they are part. A purely descriptive account, as proposed by actor–network theory, has been criticized for not reflecting how social structure or power relations shape truth claims (Garrety, 1997). Nonetheless, in this article, we assume that social structures and power relations are inherent to dilemmas of whether MC and FGC are comparable or not, where ‘scientific facts’ grounded in the Western construction of knowledge are contested (Bell, 2005). These ‘facts’ are embedded in cultural, political, gendered and medical beliefs that are manifested and enacted through actors such as institutions, language, research, medicine, law and civil society. Thus, political acts concerning FGC and MC usually make a strong statement, as the sociologist Peter Aggleton (2007: 15) put it, they are ‘enacted upon others by those with power, in the broader interests of a public good but with profound individual and social consequences’. It is here that the slippery slope argument comes in: if the morally contested change is proposed, such as a ban on MC, it is believed that taking this first step will inevitably lead to a negative outcome, such as promoting anti-Semitism and intolerance towards Islam (Lewis, 2007; Munzer, 2015). Taking this first step is therefore often avoided (Lewis, 2007). While there currently appears to be a push to act on the circumcision of boys in Norway, indicated by public debate and the 2015 law that medicalized MC, there still seems to be a reluctance to recognize the similarities between FGC and MC. A reason for this may be that there have been cases outside Norway where acting upon the similarities has had problematic consequences. For instance, on 26 April 2010 the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) released a policy on FGC proclaiming that forms of FGC that were less invasive, such as pricking or incising the clitoral skin, were permitted as they were arguably less harmful than some forms of MC (American Academy of Paediatrics, 2010a). One month later, AAP denounced the policy, emphasizing opposition to any form of FGC (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2010b). Van Howe (2011) argues that this change in policy was due to strong opposition from groups opposing all forms of FGC. Similarly, in May 2012 a regional judge in Germany argued that circumcision of male children is unlawful because it constitutes a form of physical assault (Merkel and Putzke, 2013). The ruling was later challenged by the Parliament, which enacted a new statute that permitted the right to perform ritual boy circumcision (Merkel and Putzke, 2013). This act led to a nationwide debate on secularization, anti-Semitism, discrimination against Muslims and Germany’s Nazi past (Munzer, 2015). Treating FGC and MC in the same way through political interventions thus presents a potential danger to the broader public good due to established understandings of concepts such as biomedicine, gender, ethnicity, and religion. In this article, we explore how this reluctance to act upon the similarities between FGC and MC in the Norwegian context shapes understandings of lived experiences.

Female genital cutting and male circumcision among Kurdish–Norwegians

Kurdistan is not a nation-state, but a territory in the border region of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, which is socially, and to some extent politically, recognized as a nation (Chaliand, 1993). The most recent international, population-based survey measuring FGC rates in Iraq in 2018 found FGC to be primarily concentrated in the Kurdish areas, with an estimated prevalence of 37.4% (UNICEF, 2019). There are no national population-based surveys of FGC in Iran, Syria, or Turkey. However, various reports show that FGC occurs in different parts of Iran, including Kurdish areas, with estimates that around half the female population is circumcised (Ahmady, 2015). The types of FGC practiced have been identified as types I, II, and IV (Saleem et al., 2013; WADI, 2010), whereas type III/infibulation has not been recorded. The prevalence rates of MC have been measured as 99.7% in Iran and 98.9% in Iraq, based on the number of people classified as Muslims and Jews (Morris et al., 2016). Although most Kurds are Muslim, there is great religious diversity in Kurdistan where other religions are common – and increasingly in opposition to parts of Islam – such as Zoroastrianism (Bruinessen, 2000). This estimate of MC in Iraq and Iran is thus an indicator, rather than a completely accurate figure, representing the extent of MC among Iranian and Iraqi Kurds. The Kurdish migrant population is one of the four largest migrant groups in Norway that come from regions where FGC is practiced, together with Somalis, Eritreans and Ethiopians (Ziyada et al., 2016). The Norwegian Directorate of Health (2011) has estimated that around 2000 boys are circumcised annually. This estimate does not specify whether some of the boys are of Kurdish ethnicity. To the best of our knowledge, there is no research that analyses how discourses of FGC blend into understandings of MC in Norway, and in this article, we address this knowledge gap.

Methodology

This article is based on qualitative data gathered in Norway by the first author between October 2014 and March 2016. The first author began recruiting participants by presenting the project at social, political, and women’s events arranged by different Kurdish organizations. Additional participants were recruited by contacting acquaintances of the research participants and people within the personal network of the first author, as well as three meetings with a women’s group. In the end, 19 women and nine men with ages ranging from early 20s to late 50s who self-identified as having an Iraqi or Iranian Kurdish background were interviewed. All had lived in Norway between 6 and 20 years. Participants had extensive contact with other Kurds in Norway and Kurdistan, and many had contact with Norwegians, particularly through work or health care and social services. The group included artists, volunteers, unemployed, domestic workers, journalists, students, translators and engineers. Even though all were not specifically asked, 11 identified as Muslim, 6 as Zoroastrian, 5 as non-religious and 6 did not state their religious beliefs. Initially, two interviews, one group interview with four men and one dyad interview with two women, were conducted. The rest of the interviews were individual, except in the case of two dyad interviews with married couples who wanted to be interviewed together. Twelve of the participants were interviewed more than once to clarify or elaborate on information from their initial interview(s). Participants were interviewed in their homes, in cafes or at their workplaces. The interviews were semi-structured using a thematic interview guide and lasted between 30 minutes and 2 hours. All but two interviews were voice-recorded and transcribed verbatim. For the two interviews that were not recorded, extensive notes were taken throughout the interview and a summary was written immediately afterwards. Most interviews were conducted in Norwegian, some in English, and three with an interpreter in Kurdish Sorani. The first author also participated in, and noted observations and informal conversations during, social, political, and women’s activist events arranged by different Kurdish communities and migrant organizations. Observations and notes were also taken before, during, and after interviews, at three meetings with the group of Kurdish women, and from a close reading of public and social media such as open Facebook pages and websites. In addition, 12 key informants with the topic of FGC as part of their job description were interviewed. As it was mainly in the interviews with Kurdish–Norwegian participants that boy circumcision became a theme, this article reports on those interviews. However, another empirical material informs their views. For example, in informal conversations at the different events, people often asked whether the research project was about boy circumcision even when they were informed that the project focused on FGC and boy circumcision was not mentioned. The Norwegian Centre for Research Data has approved the approach used for ensuring de-identification of the participants, handling of the research material, and informed consent. In this article all research participants have been given pseudonyms, and, when necessary, person-identified information about participants has been altered in order to ensure confidentiality.

Data analysis

In initial interviews, broad themes about FGC were addressed by asking participants when they first heard of FGC and what they perceived as its consequences. When transcribing and reading the interviews, it became apparent that participants often brought up boy circumcision when they were describing FGC. This observation was noted, and whenever participants brought up boy circumcision the first author pursued the theme in order to gain a better comprehension of how boy circumcision was relevant to FGC. The last interviews asked about MC specifically, including topics such as reasons for MC and how it was conducted. At the end of the fieldwork period, the first author read all transcripts of the empirical material and started to code the data. The focus was on how participants conceptualized FGC; yet, because boy circumcision became a theme during data collection, the coding resulted in categories on the ritual of MC, the consequences of MC, and support and resistance to MC. After discussing this initial analysis with the co-authors, the re-reading and further analysis of the material focused on how participants drew on MC in their descriptions of FGC. At this point, the first author began to review scholarship on FGC and MC, while concurrently and systematically reading through the interview sections where participants addressed boy and girl circumcision. The overarching theme ‘boy or girl circumcision?’ was then identified as reflecting that research participants addressed boy circumcision when asked about girl circumcision, while the following three themes were identified as reasons why participants drew on boy circumcision in their descriptions of FGC: the condemnation of girl circumcision; the acceptability of boy circumcision; and the questioning of the acceptability of boy circumcision. Initially, theories on gender differences and gender sameness were used in attempts to understand the dilemmas of FGC and MC that the participants and the scholarship on MC and FGC described. However, these theories did not enable more than another descriptive account of controversies surrounding FGC and MC. As it was realized that the dilemmas were not only about gender but also ethnicity and medicalization, theories on mapping controversies and the slippery slope argument were then applied to better explain the intersectional dilemmas, rather than simply describing them. The underpinning epistemological stance in this research project is social constructionist, in that we assume that the views research participants shared are, to some extent, based on the controversies surrounding FGC and MC (Crotty, 2009).

Results

In the following, we first detail how boy circumcision was brought up when the participants were asked about girl circumcision. Next, we present three themes identified as to how the participants more easily talked about boy rather than girl circumcision: (1) the condemnation of girl circumcision; (2) the acceptability of boy circumcision and (3) the questioning of the acceptability of boy circumcision.

Boy or girl circumcision?

Research participants commonly talked about circumcision of boys when asked about FGC, sometimes to draw a contrast to FGC and other times to highlight dimensions of likeness. When asked if she could remember the first time she heard of female circumcision, Zara’s response usefully demonstrated how some of the participants introduced boy circumcision without prompting:

I have a few memories of when my little brother was circumcised. […] My brothers have, of course, been circumcised. To me, circumcision has always been something with boys. […] It was in Norway that I heard about girl circumcision for the first time.

Becoming aware of the way the participants often drew on boy circumcision in their descriptions of FGC, the first author explored whether her use of ‘female circumcision’, and sometimes only ‘circumcision’, prompted participants to address boy circumcision rather than circumcision of girls. The Norwegian term for female genital mutilation (kjønnslemlestelse) was also used when asking participants whether they were talking about circumcision for girls or boys when this was unclear during interviews. In this way, it became apparent that circumcision referred to both girls and boys, but that it was somehow easier to talk about and describe boy circumcision. Participants also explained that the Kurdish term ‘Khatana’ means circumcision of children; a specification should be added to indicate whether one is talking about boy or girl circumcision. One reason for the apparent ease in addressing boy over girl circumcision seemed to be related to their condemnation of FGC.

The condemnation of female genital cutting

Participants shared a relatively uniform condemnation of the circumcision of girls. This condemnation differentiated girl circumcision as negative from a sense that boy circumcision was acceptable. Men and women commonly argued that they would not expose their daughter to circumcision based on their own experiences or knowledge of others’ experiences with FGC. Twenty-year-old Cimen, for example, said that she was uncircumcised because her mother ‘would never want her children, or her daughter, to go through what she herself had gone through’. Many based their condemnation of girl circumcision on the opinion that it is an old tradition, not religiously required, non-consensual, suppresses women, and has negative sexual and health consequences. One exception was Samal, who was in his 30s and had lived in Norway for almost 10 years. He was not entirely convinced by the religious and medical arguments condemning FGC. Samal highlighted what other research participants often implied: that they did not fully recognize themselves in condemning public discourse on FGC in Norway. This discourse commonly focuses on Somalis, who practice type III FGC/infibulation, a type unknown to Kurds. While they condemned FGC, some saw it as misleading to discuss Kurdish FGC in the same terms as what they referred to as ‘African FGC’, meaning type III/infibulation. Meryem, for example, claimed that FGC in Kurdistan was not the same as in ‘African countries. For them [Africans] it is a lot worse, because they get circumcised in a different way’. Participants thus seem to share an uncertainty about whether Kurdish FGC was comparable to ‘African FGC’. Leyle, for example, was ‘99% sure’ she was circumcised. She explained that, during her teenage years in her hometown in Iranian Kurdistan, she had seen women assisting at births quickly cut the baby girls’ genitalia. When she got older, she had asked her mother whether she had been cut in that way. Her mother could not give her an answer, as she did not know what the woman who assisted her during the birth had done. It was when she later lived in Norway that Leyle recognized the cut that she had seen done on new-born girls – and most likely herself – as FGC:

I had forgotten what had happened. With that cut and stuff, until I became familiar with circumcision in Norway, and they began to talk about it being in Kurdistan too. I refused: ‘No, it does not exist in Kurdistan!’ I just denied, because I just thought about that way [‘African FGC’] of circumcising. But eventually I thought back a bit to what happened when a child was born. When circumcising boys and girls. How was it in Kurdistan? Then I thought about the incision they had, and that it was an assault. And then I realized that they circumcised girls.

For Leyle, it was through reflecting upon boy and girl circumcision as somewhat comparable in Kurdistan and the focus on FGC type III/infibulation in Norway that she understood that the way they cut girls could be labelled as FGC. In Norway, it became difficult to understand whether FGC was comparable to Somali FGC or boy circumcision. A reason for the difficulty in fully comparing Kurdish FGC to boy circumcision seemed to be due to a sense of acceptability of boy circumcision.

The acceptability of male circumcision

The participants explained that they found it easier to talk about boy circumcision due to the differences created by perceptions of gender. One example is illustrated by Bayan. When asked why she thought people found it easier to talk about MC than FGC, Bayan emphasized the implications of norms of decency regarding gender and sexuality:

If there are people visiting, they can easily say: ‘My son is getting circumcised’. However, the dad cannot say that my daughter is getting circumcised. Then people will think: ‘Oh my goodness! He is talking about his daughters’ genitalia’. There will be negative rumours.

Perceptions of gender thus constructed differences in the ways FGC and MC could be discussed. When describing girl circumcision, participants commonly positioned the practice in Kurdistan, distinguishing it from Norway and implying that girls are no longer circumcised. Participants described how, in Kurdistan, the practice was shrouded in secrecy, sadness, and silence, and limited to rural areas. In contrast, boy circumcision was associated with openness and celebration, and could occur in both urban and rural areas in Kurdistan, Norway, and other European countries. While differences according to gender perceptions were a means of separating girl and boy circumcision, Ariya, in her 30s, from Iranian Kurdistan, and Rojan, in his 40s, from Iraqi Kurdistan, showed how childhood experiences highlighted similarities between the practices. Both described an immediate pain that quickly passed when they were circumcised around the age of five to six years old. However, they differentiated the long-term consequences by gender. In contrast to Rojan, who stated that he had ‘never ever’ had problems due to his circumcision, Ariya discussed experiences of sexual problems and a sense of ‘fear in my body and in me’. Other participants commonly separated the consequences of circumcision according to gender in similar ways. Reduced sexual pleasure and desire were commonly described as negative consequences of FGC, whereas boy circumcision was believed to improve their sexual pleasure and desire. However, this distinction was not rigid. Hanan, for example, expressed that, despite having heard that FGC would affect her negatively sexually, she had not experienced sexual problems. Zara, on the other hand, referred to a conversation she had with her male cousin about his circumcision to demonstrate that a loss of sexual lust and desire also could be a problem for circumcised men:

I remember he joked a little bit with: ‘You know, you are taking away some of what is also a pleasure part’.

Thus, the distinction between the effects of circumcision according to gender, with boy circumcision as more acceptable than girl circumcision, was not clear-cut. Perhaps because of such unclear overlaps between boy and girl circumcision, several of the participants questioned the acceptability of boy circumcision.

Questioning the acceptability of male circumcision

Some participants did not question the acceptability of boy circumcision, others demonstrated an uncertainty about whether boy circumcision was comparable to FGC and reflected upon whether boy circumcision was acceptable. Further, some participants rejected boy circumcision. By drawing on her own experience with FGC, Hanan exemplified the latter view:

[FGC] is mental torture for girls. I now have such a negative view that if I have children today […] I will wait until my son is a little older. When he has grown up, I will ask him if he wants to be circumcised. Because I do not want to do this to my children. Neither my boy nor my daughter. If I ever have children. That’s where I am at. We must end this.

Other participants viewed boy circumcision as ‘violence too’ (Seyran, 40-year-old female, Iraqi Kurdistan), and many explained that they had friends or family who had moved away from Kurdistan and ‘didn’t even circumcise their boys’ (Kamiran, 42-year-old male, Iraqi Kurdistan). However, there was an understanding that ‘we should stop the [circumcision] of girls first, and for boys it is far ahead’ (Seyran). There were socio-cultural, religious, and biomedical beliefs that supported the continuation of MC. These views were, however, ambiguous; we will explore this ambiguity in the following.

Boy circumcision seemed to be particularly problematic in a Norwegian context where boys are not commonly circumcised. Tara, who had lived in Norway for more than 10 years, explained how she started to question the social and cultural norms surrounding boy circumcision. She had circumcised her son in Kurdistan because ‘of the culture there, everyone does it’ and ‘the [uncircumcised] boys, they cannot get married’. In the interview, Tara expressed regret:

I remember when I circumcised my son. Although there was a doctor there, I was crying all the time. I cried and cried and cried. I thought: ‘It's painful for him. Why did I do it?’ […] Although they used anaesthesia, they used a syringe. When I think of it, I'm annoyed with myself, I get angry with myself. I get frustrated with myself. I do not know what my son thinks. He does not say anything. But I know at school it was a little embarrassing for him to be with others. He was different to everyone else at the Norwegian school. He did not want to shower and he did not want to show himself. That feeling just made me … it was very painful for me. So now I think: ‘What have I done to my son? Why did I circumcise him?’ That's what I regret all the time.

While there was ambiguity related to the socio-cultural necessity of boy circumcision in the Norwegian context, some participants drew on Islamic texts to argue that boy circumcision was necessary, while girl circumcision was not. Mahabad, a woman in her 30s from Iraqi–Kurdistan, illustrated this:

With circumcision we all agree, we believe it is from religion […] that boys should be circumcised, and there is evidence that it should be done. But with girls there is no good evidence that you should do it, or we call it Sunnah [encouraged, but not a compulsory religious practice].

Some participants expanded on Mahabad’s view and said that the obligation to circumcise a boy was only applicable to those belonging to particular interpretations of Islam. Some argued that those associated with the more conservative elements of Islam practiced both MC and FGC as they believed this was compulsory according to Islamic texts. Further, many were critical to the increasing Islamization of Kurdistan. Hanan, for example, claimed to not be very religious, and insisted that her resistance to circumcise a future son was a way for her to take a ‘distance from religion’. Rojan, the married man in his 40s, expressed that, in a modern interpretation of the Quran, ‘[boy circumcision] is religious, but not an obligation. It is better to do it, but not a must’. Further, Islam was not the only motivation for performing MC. Arman, for example, identified as Zoroastrian and was circumcised. While he did not mention any religious arguments as to why he, as a non-Muslim, was circumcised, he did not see any problem with MC by insisting that ‘when they circumcise boys and women, it is only the men who [gain] anything from it’.

While participants held ambiguous and diverse views on the socio-cultural and religious necessity of boy circumcision, they often justified its continuation by making the procedure ‘safe’ by using medical facilities, staff and equipment. This was commonly distinguished from girl circumcision, which was easier to reject due to women’s rights, the immediate pain and negative consequences for health and sexuality. In dealing with how and when to circumcise a boy there was, however, uncertainty about whether a boy should be circumcised as a baby to avoid remembering the pain, or whether he should be given the right to decide to be circumcised or not when older. Bayan, who was interviewed twice over a one-year period, elaborated on this dilemma. In the first interview, Bayan claimed that she condemned girl circumcision because ‘you mutilate that person’. At the time, she was unsure whether boy circumcision was the same, or whether to circumcise her son. A year later, she had circumcised him during a trip to Kurdistan. Bayan emphasized that her decision to circumcise him was not based on culture or religion, but due to a medical problem caused by a tight foreskin. The doctors in Norway had not wanted to circumcise him, she explained, as his condition might have resolved itself before adolescence. However, as she did not want him to remember the procedure, she decided to circumcise him in a hospital in Kurdistan. Nonetheless, she was distressed by her experience with his circumcision due to the pain expressed by her son and the procedure and equipment in the hospital, and she exclaimed ‘it was one of the worst things I have ever done’. She hoped, however, that because she had done it when he was young that ‘he has forgotten it now’. Based on this experience, Bayan insisted that she would not circumcise her second son unless there was a medical reason to do so. Medical arguments thus seemed to provide an (ambiguous) sense of ease.

Discussion

Empirical studies in communities where FGC and MC are practiced show that because boy and girl circumcision are often strongly related in the minds of those who perform them, it is not possible to understand one without the other (Merli, 2010; Prazak, 2016). The anthropologist Miroslava Prazak (2016) argues that it may, in fact, be hard to eliminate FGC while treating MC as a separate practice. Based on the unexpected comparisons that research participants made to MC when asked about FGC in the current study, we expand on the argument that to examine overlaps between FGC and MC can lead to improved understandings of both practices.

A recent qualitative study on perceptions of MC and FGC in another diasporic context – that of Somali-Swedes – found that ‘MC was perceived as an unquestionably required practice, but FC was viewed as a practice that can be adapted or abandoned’ (Wahlberg et al., 2018: 619). Their finding echoes a sense of differentiation of MC and FGC which is also reflected in much public discourse and academic scholarship. However, this differentiation is not as clear in the interviews in our study. We understand this as a consequence of anti-FGC campaigns that, only to a limited extent, have differentiated between types of FGC. Scholarship sometimes emphasizes that women who have been exposed to FGC, particularly forms other than infibulation, may not find the condemning public discourses to be fully applicable to them (e.g. Nyarango and Griffin, 2019). An example of this can be seen in a recent campaign in India where the Dawoodi Bohra Women for Religious Freedom (2019) stated that FGM is not practiced among the Bora, rather they practice a form of female circumcision which they insist is less invasive than MC. Among the Norwegian-Kurds it seems that perhaps due to a focus in research and media debates in Norway on ‘Somali FGC’, or infibulation, the condemning public discourse also does not fully capture the Kurdish-Norwegians’ understandings of what FGC constitute. We have found that their understanding of FGC somehow also overlaps with MC. This overlap between Kurdish FGC and MC may have resulted in some participants viewing boy circumcision as problematic. In particular, childhood experiences, with an emphasis on the immediate pain of being circumcised, seemed to make some participants express doubt about whether, and at what age, they should subject their sons to circumcision, and regret for others who had had their sons circumcised. In many ways, participants had internalized a historical shift – and the current paradigm – in the work against FGC, in which FGC (and increasingly MC) is understood within a human, or children’s, rights framework (Earp, 2015). However, it may be because Kurdish FGC was not only perceived as comparable to boy circumcision, but also infibulation, that there was ambiguity towards a clear rejection of MC. Our findings indicate that socio-cultural and religious grounds are drawn on to argue for the necessity of MC, while these same arguments could, at other times, be used to reject MC. A common perception was that MC could continue in an ‘acceptable’ manner if it was done safely with the assistance of medical staff, equipment, and facilities. Prazak (2016) also found this belief in her 20-year fieldwork in an FGC- and MC-practicing community in Kenya. She found that the global condemnation of FGC had entered local discourses. This did not necessarily lead to total elimination of FGC in this particular community, she argues, as FGC prevalence rates were still at 96% in 2008. But the global condemnation of FGC contributed to changes in the meaning of both FGC and MC, particularly in regard to medicalization. In going to the hospital to get circumcised ‘safely’, boys did not live up to traditional ideals of masculinity, as they did not endure the pain of the ritual. It was more difficult for girls to have the procedure done medically safely due to legal regulations, and community members needed to decide how and whether to circumcise girls, considering how this would affect who the girls could marry (Prazak, 2016). What we have seen in the present study is that a new meaning of boy circumcision is a negotiation of the potential harm a boy may be exposed to. Participants negotiated this by either arguing that the boy should be old enough to consent or young enough that he would not remember the pain. While religious and cultural arguments may have been, and still are, strong motivators for MC also in the Norwegian context, the pain of the ritual seems to be an increasing concern that challenges the motivation for conducting MC on boys (Kirschner, 2012; Solbakk, 2012).

We argue that this changed meaning of boy circumcision can be related to the reluctance to approach girl and boy circumcision as parallel by the Norwegian government, and the 2015 medical regulation of MC. The medicalization of boy circumcision can be understood as a harm-reduction strategy. In contrast, most anti-FGC fundraisers and activists have focused on the total elimination of FGC, excluding any intermediate stages like a harm-reduction strategy, as it is believed that this would counteract efforts to bring to a complete end all forms of FGC (Shell-Duncan, 2001). This opposition to a harm-reduction strategy may be understood through the slippery slope argument (Lewis, 2007): there is a fear that the promotion of morally contested change (e.g. allowing some forms of FGC) inevitably can lead to a negative outcome (e.g. FGC gains new legitimacy). The lack of a harm-reduction strategy in anti-FGC work has been criticized for ignoring possible positive outcomes for women’s health by reducing the risk of medical complications associated with FGC, for example by reducing the amount of cutting, or by conducting FGC in medical facilities by the use of medical staff and equipment—which is already happening in some FGC-practicing communities (Kimani and Shell-Duncan, 2018; Prazak, 2016). What we have seen in the present study, however, is a condemnation of FGC, and, thus, by not offering a harm-reduction strategy, this can be understood as a way of protecting girls’ and women’s rights. However, although there is little empirical evidence of success to support such a claim in the Norwegian context, the possibility that girls may undergo more dangerous circumcisions if the practice goes underground, should not be ignored (Bråten and Elgvin, 2014; Kimani and Shell-Duncan, 2018). In not treating boy circumcision in the same way as FGC, the Norwegian government somehow neglects the ‘relatively strong support for gender equality in Norway’ where the debate has focused on equality as sameness where the institutionalization of gender-neutral legislation has been done without considering gender difference (Bjørnholt, 2013: 26). In not treating boy and girl circumcision in the same way, the Norwegian government has thus succumbed to global hegemonic ‘facts’ that male and female children have differing genital predispositions and should be treated differently when it comes to the cutting of their genitalia. This also means that the government neglects children’s rights to bodily autonomy and values some religious views more than the potential health risks of medically unnecessary boy circumcision. What our findings suggest, nevertheless, is that the Norwegian government’s harm-reduction strategy for MC has the potential to make parents or guardians feel uneasy about circumcising their sons, and some parents might decide not to do it. Even though the elimination of MC is not an explicit goal, a harm-reduction strategy for MC, and a zero-tolerance policy for FGC may actually lead to a rejection of MC as the meaning of ritual boy circumcision changes. Further, based upon experiences from other countries, the reluctance to act upon the similarities of FGC and MC may avoid promoting stigmas, such as intolerance towards Islam, anti-Semitism, and violence against women and girls.

Concluding remarks

Scholarship on MC and FGC show how hegemonic global discourses have changed since the 1980s; rather than viewing MC and FGC as similar practices that prepare children for adulthood, an emphasis has been placed on the elimination of FGC. This focus on elimination has separated FGC from MC, in that FGC is commonly viewed as intolerable and MC as acceptable. Activists and scholars are pushing towards a view that the practices are somewhat similar, but, rather than seeing them as acceptable, there is an emphasis on consent and protecting children from harm. It is in this historical context that we have seen confusion about whether Kurdish FGC is comparable to MC or infibulation. Together with the differing political treatment of MC and FGC, and the unclear overlap between the practices, there seems to be a re-negotiation of the meaning of boy circumcision. This meaning constitutes an increasing concern on the right to bodily autonomy and consent and the pain and harm of ritual boy circumcision. In their different treatment of boy and girl circumcision, we suggest that, in many ways, the Norwegian government protects girls’ and women’s rights, avoids stigmatizing debates on anti-Semitism and intolerance towards Islam, and, perhaps unintentionally, promotes rejection of the practice. While we are not in a position to say that the views shared are the same in other social groups, or in other countries, we suggest that future research should explore the changing meaning of boy circumcision and harm-reduction strategies. This may lead to a better understanding of FGC and MC. In turn, such research can better inform parents in their decision-making processes as well as future political interventions on FGC and MC.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Professor Johanne Sundby at the University of Oslo for their constructive feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ingvild Bergom Lunde

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‘Why did I circumcise him?’ Unexpected comparisons to male circumcision in a qualitative study on female genital cutting among Kurdish–Norwegians

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Controversies of female genital cutting and male circumcision at a global level

Female genital cutting and male circumcision in the Norwegian context

Theoretical framework: The slippery slope of the circumcision controversies

Female genital cutting and male circumcision among Kurdish–Norwegians

Methodology

Data analysis

Results

Boy or girl circumcision?

The condemnation of female genital cutting

The acceptability of male circumcision

Questioning the acceptability of male circumcision

Discussion

Concluding remarks

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References