Genital Mutilation

To the Editors of The Crimson:

At my lecture on female genital and sexual mutilations, on International Women's Day (sponsored by the Radcliffe Forum), an article and letter published recently in The Crimson was brought up. In this article/letter, the showing of an anthropological film on genital/sexual mutilation in Chad, Africa, was protested.

As Editor/Publisher of Women's International Network News (WIN NEWS), a worldwide, open, participatory network by, for and about women concerned with women's rights and women's development, I must straighten out some of the facts in the developing world. Whatever male professors wish to quarrel about, including their academic credentials, is of no consequence to the female children in Africa, who are once more used as pawns of men.

There are more than 70 million women and children in Africa today who are genitally mutilated (excised and infibulated). This was discussed at a World Health Organization Seminar in Khartoum in February 1979, with ten African and Middle Eastern countries participating, as the operations are also performed in the Middle East, in Egypt and on the Arab Peninsula. It should be added that Moslem girls in Malaysia and parts of Indonesia are also subjected to sexual operations of a less drastic kind than those performed by over 200 ethnic groups living in more than 26 countries in Africa.

It is a very great disservice to continue the ignorant claims that these practices no longer exist or, as was stated in a signed letter printed in The Crimson by S. Allen Counter: "According to authorities, these practices among remote African tribes, have long since been outlawed." Mr. Counter should cite those authorities.

Since racism was implied in the letter to The Crimson and also in The Crimson article, as editor of WIN NEWS, I must state it is both racist and sexist to continue to hush up the facts. Do African children and women, because they are Black, suffer any less from these mutilations? If the equivalent operation (penisdectomy) were performed in Africa, there would be an outcry by men around the world!

Since the letter printed in The Crimson points out that women are performing the operations on children (with obviously a sexist intention), as expert on the subject, I must state it is quite true in most cases, women are the operators: but the operations would stop in Africa tomorrow if men would not require them. African men refuse to marry girls who are not excised or infibulated (depending on the ethnic group); therefore, women who have no alternative than marriage are compelled to perform the operations on their own children.

If the Black Student Association at Harvard has any regard for women, it would try to form a support group for those in Africa and the Middle East (as WIN NEWS has done) who are desperately struggling to be heard against these operations and who have been ignored by all international agencies of the patriarchal power structure. Due to population growth, there are more children mutilated today than ever before in the history of the Africa continent.

At the WHO Seminar in Khartoum in February 1979 on "Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children," delegates mostly from Health Departments of ten African and Middle Eastern countries participated. They formulated four recommendations to abolish all forms of female genital mutilation, and to publicize the damage done by these operations all over Africa as well as to initiate worldwide educational campaigns against the practice. The WHO also urged international cooperation. In light of these recommendations, it is a great disservice by professors at Harvard University, and others, to attempt to suppress the facts.

Finally, I must state that I am not German, but my family and I fled from Austria from Hitler's racism and persecution. I take exception to be called the "German companion" of anyone. I am listed in every Who's Who and in the Harvard Alumnae list. I was the first person who filed a class action suit against Harvard University--specifically the Graduate School of Design (1971)--for discrimination, a fact that is well-known to the administration. I also testified in Congress on the subject. I offered to the Peabody Museum and to the Department of Anthropology, to give a lecture on female mutilation as special advisor to WHO. This was turned down by the male academic heads, who also refused to order the "Hosken Report: Genital/Sexual Mutilation of Females," the research work which I prepared based on six years of research in Africa and around the world, and which is the only standard research work on the subject. But, quite clearly, the male-dominated, academic community at Harvard does not wish to be informed. Fran P. Hosken