Posted on 04/24/2017 8:51:32 AM PDT by markomalley
Worried the term female genital mutilation might sharpen the divide between those who oppose brutally cutting away a little girls genitalia to deprive her of sexual pleasure and those who practice the rite, one New York Times editor instead refers to the ritual as genital cutting.
Theres a gulf between the Western (and some African) advocates who campaign against the practice and the people who follow the rite, and I felt the language used widened that chasm, NYT science and health editor Celia Dugger explained Friday. She also said the widely used term (FGM) is culturally loaded in the explanation, which came as a result of inquiries from The Daily Caller News Foundation regarding a reporters decision to use the term cutting in a recent story about a doctor in Michigan.
The doctor was allegedly caught mutilating innocent little girls as young as six and charged with a felony. Performed in American culture and subject to American laws, female genital mutilation carries a sentence of up to five years.
Dugger said she made the decision to ditch mutilation for cutting after traveling to sub-Saharan Africa for an immigration story in 1996. While she says she never minced words in describing exactly what form of cutting was involved and the terrible damage it inflicted on young girls, Dugger apparently wanted to soften the instinctive horror by many who oppose the brutal practice by using cutting instead.
Other human rights organizations have frowned upon using the term genital cutting, saying that it does not accurately describe the suffering placed on young girls.
It establishes a clear distinction from male circumcision, the United Nations Population Fund explained. Use of the word mutilation also emphasizes the gravity of the act and reinforces that the practice is a violation of womens and girls basic human rights.
Dugger has apparently pushed the editorial direction of the TheNYT to follow her lead. The only time female genital mutilation appears in an April 13 report from NYT reporter Jacey Fortin on the Michigan doctor is in a statement from an acting assistant attorney general within the Department of Justice. Otherwise the piece uses Duggers preferred term cutting.
Hillary Burrage, a sociologist who writes against the practice, argues against using other terminology to describe the mutilation of young girls.
But the time has come to deny for ourselves as activists and thought leaders the comfort of euphemisms, Burrage said at the 2016 Global Woman P.E.A.C.E. Walk-A-Thon to End the practice. Lets drop the use of language which softens our horror of FGM, and speak the truth we know.
Or how about 'Human Crushing by Large Trucks'?
Or 'Removal of Human Heads by Sharp Knives'?
Culturally loaded means, "It's those damn muzzl'ems again but we don't want to hurt their feelings."
just my 2 cents but the doc should be castrated.
Just another example of bowing down before the fastest-growing voting block for the democrats.
BTW, chopping a dick or clitoris (”sex change”) is genital mutilation.
Isn’t it quite the hypocrisy that these mainstream media outlets are at the the forefront of exposing sex abuse in the catholic church but yet refrain from exposing islam and violence of women involving honor killings of daughters and clitoral demolition...
The religion of Cut off Little Pieces
That must be why they don't use terms like "right wing" or "ultra conservative", or "white privilege".
Someone using that term is just like them taking out a sign that says “I am a stupid and willfully ignorant liberal and have no valid argument.”
My Trump grim gets bigger every time I hear it.
Circumcision is the single greatest prevention of AIDS (other than abstinence). A urologist buddy of mine spent part of his internship setting up circumcision clinics in Africa.
Educate yourself before spouting off nonsense.
If you cannot name a foe, then you cannot defeat that foe, meaning that foe will prevail.
And the reason they refuse to name that foe, just as they will not name islam as a foe, is because they want they foe to prevail.
Democrat women better wise up fast, or they will end up with a government that mutilates their bodies, and they have a great deal of wising up to do.
It’s quite simple. The Communists have linked up with Islam to destroy the West. They haven’t thought about what happens after that. So they will do nothing to hinder their allies.
Yahoo! referred to it as “female circumcision” earlier today.
Here’s an idea—If the procedure is so swell, let’s line up a couple for Chelsea and the Obama girls.
All I can say is I’m whole. I have all of my senses. Thank god my parents didn’t have it done to me. You get AIDS from people with AIDS, not from uncircumsized penises. In the US and modern societies, it’s mutilation for no real benefit exept mutilate the kid.
Not the same but similar. Both decrease sexual pleasure although much more so with Female clitorial removal.
There SHOULD be a chasm between civilization and savagery.
If you think this is remotely close to male circumcision you need an education.
I’m saying taking a knife to a penis or vagina, especially without consent, is wrong. Period.
How long until Planned Parenthood is doing this “procedure”?? It is a female’s choice, after all. (sarc)
The dirty little secret is that the media and the Democrats support female genital mutilation.
It is has been going on in the United States but the Obama administration refused to prosecute.
Recently the first prosecution occurred under president Trump.
That’s the correct word, n’est-ce pas?
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