Any thoughts on this article?

[Maarodi]

So I was going about my business this fine Saturday afternoon trying to catch up on the news when I came across Gawker (yes, I do get "news" from Gawker :rolleyes: ). I came across an interesting headline, "Privileged *****: Terrorism, Torture and American Tomorrows" which had what looked like to me a cute baby picture of an African-American girl only to find out by skimming it was a fellow Somali -- writing about FGM among other things.

 

When I read it there were a couple of things that stood out but I ignored it and tried to grasp the bigger picture only to find out this paragraph sums the whole article up.

 

 

"Being the token Somali girl with Privileged ***** is bittersweet. It's tinged with a lot of liberal guilt. I'm one of the lucky few, the four percent who are arbitrarily exempt from this antiquated tradition. The dual hermeneutics, the cognitive dissonance of this, puts me in an interesting position. On the one hand, I have almost zero authority on the matter. On the other hand, I'm by default more qualified than most Western feminists to talk about the practice. (For starters, unlike a sizable chunk of them, my objective isn't to tar Somali women with the label "oppressed.") ..."

 

Read more here

[oba hiloowlow]

this girl is way too much seriously im sure there are hundreds of other way she could've expressed herself

[Mario B]

Women like this exist in all cultures, most notably in American culture; their identities are far more marred and fractured than the most victimized of us all. They've resigned themselves to the broader power structures bringing broads down.

They're pawns in the patriarchal system.[

On this issue, I have always believed that those who propagated this custom were women, and that if all men were to agree [ which I do believe they could agree, if a poll were to be held tomorrow] that this practise should be eliminated, only for women to conspire against that consensus!!

 

I believe women [ cultural Nazi type] perpetual this practise. Hopefully with peace we could eliminate it in about a generation or two.

[oba hiloowlow]

FGM is already decreasing in i never understood the meaning with it its just complicating stuff.

[Maarodi]

Mario B;881687 wrote:

I believe women [ cultural Nazi type] perpetual this practise. Hopefully with peace we could eliminate it in about a generation or two.

It certainly seems that way. But it's just too convenient to just run with "conventional wisdom" and a pre-established narrative and conflate patriarchy, FGM, and terrorism all the while not contextualizing the practice.

[guerilla]

Long-winded narrative aside, the fact that she considers herself 'privileged' for having a clitoris pretty much sums up the sad reality of what it means to be Somali and female.

[Maarodi]

ha haha, iskada qofta, waxay maqashay caadanka oo iisugu yeraayo (ama loogo yeraayo) "privileged" markasaye iskala ooraday.

[Che -Guevara]

Comment

 

I feel compelled to respond to this disappointing and dangerous piece published by Gawker both as a Somali woman living in the diaspora, and as a PhD student specializing in women and gender in the Horn of Africa. Safy-Hallan Farah is participating (despite her disclaimer that her objective is "not to tar Somali women with the label ‘oppressed’") in a wider, problematic discourse of the African/Muslim woman in peril, drawing her authority on the subject not from knowledge or expertise, but as a 'native informant' relying on anecdotal information to generalize the experiences of Somali women as a whole. What evidence is there to support the assertion that not being circumcised differentiates her from "nearly every other Somali woman in [her] age group residing in the diaspora?" What are her sources for the figures thrown around in her essay (ie. 4% of Somali women in the diaspora are uncircumcised) underpinning her argument for her "privileged *****"? There are none.

 

There is a vast literature on female circumcision in African societies that critique and move away from simplistic interpretations of the practice as a product of violent patriarchal custom, and instead explore its status as a female-led social institution embedded in complex and shifting culturally-specific understandings of sexuality, gender identities and generational relationships. Yet Farah instead erases the agency and subjectivity of African women by uncritically repeating ethnocentric Western feminist arguments that cast non-Western societies (in particular African and Muslim ones) as backward, and non-Western women as hapless victims of their barbaric cultures (and barbaric men, as Farah does by invoking Al-Shabaab). Her linking of female circumcision to Al-Shabaab and terrorism is puzzling to say the least, and empirically false. To view the status of women’s genitals as the most pressing issue affecting Somali women, women whose lives are shaped by the realities of military occupation, wars on terror, political instability and displacement, is a uniquely Western exercise of power and privilege.

[Wadani]

Excellent response. Where can i get the full article che?

[Che -Guevara]

^Maarodi posted link in the first post. The comment was the best one I saw there.

[Maarodi]

Good looking out Che, I can't wait to read her thesis!

 

BTW I've been trying to find maaxadaros on this topic and waxba ma helin. Do you all know of any on the internet?

[Reeyo]

Che -Guevara;891927 wrote:

Comment

 

I feel compelled to respond to this disappointing and dangerous piece published by Gawker both as a Somali woman living in the diaspora, and as a PhD student specializing in women and gender in the Horn of Africa. Safy-Hallan Farah is participating (despite her disclaimer that her objective is "not to tar Somali women with the label ‘oppressed’") in a wider, problematic discourse of the African/Muslim woman in peril, drawing her authority on the subject not from knowledge or expertise, but as a 'native informant' relying on anecdotal information to generalize the experiences of Somali women as a whole. What evidence is there to support the assertion that not being circumcised differentiates her from "nearly every other Somali woman in [her] age group residing in the diaspora?" What are her sources for the figures thrown around in her essay (ie. 4% of Somali women in the diaspora are uncircumcised) underpinning her argument for her "privileged *****"? There are none.

 

There is a vast literature on female circumcision in African societies that critique and move away from simplistic interpretations of the practice as a product of violent patriarchal custom, and instead explore its status as a female-led social institution embedded in complex and shifting culturally-specific understandings of sexuality, gender identities and generational relationships. Yet Farah instead erases the agency and subjectivity of African women by uncritically repeating ethnocentric Western feminist arguments that cast non-Western societies (in particular African and Muslim ones) as backward, and non-Western women as hapless victims of their barbaric cultures (and barbaric men, as Farah does by invoking Al-Shabaab). Her linking of female circumcision to Al-Shabaab and terrorism is puzzling to say the least, and empirically false. To view the status of women’s genitals as the most pressing issue affecting Somali women, women whose lives are shaped by the realities of military occupation, wars on terror, political instability and displacement, is a uniquely Western exercise of power and privilege.

Right on point comment. It never ceases to amaze me how this discourse is always subjected to Western interpretation of gender powers and the subject isolated and pitted from afar.