Female genital mutilation arrives in the UK
And women are queuing up to have it done.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, they said the number of "labial reductions" out in National Health Service hospitals had doubled to 800 a year over five years.
"More and more women are said to be troubled by the shape, size or proportions of their vulvas", wrote Lih Mei Liao and Sarah Creighton from London’s UCL Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Institute for Women’s Health.
*sigh* This is just so wrong on so many levels. What possible medical benefit could there be? Psychological maybe? So, perhaps we should look at why these women feel so unhappy with their genitalia that they are willing to undergo serious surgery, and accept the associated risks, to change it.
women seeking surgery were being influenced by idealised images of genitalia shown in pornography
Ah, that’d be it then. Live up to the patriarchal standard and if you’re not perfecty go get chopped about til you are. Can you tell I’m angry? Go Google "Labia reduction" and go for UK sites only. The top one is Enhance Your Body. Enhance? Oh shit the dictionary definition is horrendous in this context….
(verb, used with object) To raise to a higher degree; intensify; magnify. To raise the value or price of.
Object? I object! That is my body you are objectifying there! And my daughters body, my friend’s body. We are not objects. Ok, so I’m messing with the grammar and deliberately playing with the words. But the point is the same. Woman’s labia, vulva and vagina are being objectified and held up to an artificial, male lead standard.
So, female genital mutilation available on the NHS. Why? When the budgets are cut and limited and treatment for life threatening conditions isn’t there. When the right sort of oxygen isn’t available apart from as an emergency measure in some areas. When there isn’t a midwife available for a home birth because they are overstretched.
Muttering apoplectically again here.
This crap should NOT be available on the NHS - only corrective surgery for congenital defects, and that is it. When older folk are having to wait months/years for hip replacements, I would say that these are far more beneficial operations that have a greater impact on quality of life, than pornificating vulvas.
Comment by stormy — May 29, 2007 @ 10:21 am
This is unbelievable, they are suggesting that a person with an uncut, unmodified set of genitalia is in need of treatment, and more that a person with a non-functional hip or who is dying of cancer or something like that. Also what do you mean by congenital defects, you don’t mean intersexed do you?
Comment by RadFemHedonist — June 3, 2007 @ 8:28 pm