I wanted an example of a good thesis as I prepare to undertake my first in anthropology and was advised to read ‘Melting Snowflakes – Are Labia the Great Equaliser’ by Lindy McDougall. While it has nothing to do with my focus and I find it suffers from the repetitive tendency of all anthropological work, it’s an engaging work that makes its point clearly.<\/p>\n
While Westerners condemn Female Genital Cutting<\/a> (FGC – an umbrella term that covers a number of alterations) in African and other societies, there is a growing trend in Australia (and more so in the US) for women to choose Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery<\/a> (FGCS). FGC, according to those that have undergone it, makes a woman feel better about herself, socially more acceptable and enjoy sex more. FGCS is generally presented as empowering women by giving them a ‘clean slit’ which somehow makes them feel better about themselves, improves their chance of catching a man and enhances their sexual satisfaction. Lindy’s point is that FGC and FGCS are essentially the same operations performed for essentially the same reasons, so how can we condemn one and condone the other?<\/p>\n Among the arguments and quotations she put forward for each case, Lindy quotes men as saying that every woman is different and some of the mystique is taken away if they’re all made to the same ‘clean slit’ specifications. I wonder that she never discussed the connection with pedophilia. To me, a ‘clean slit’ has as little erotic value as a pre-pubescent girl. Aren’t we a hypocritical society if we condemn pedophilia while encouraging women to imitate children in the effort to catch a man? Or is the lust for children so innate that women feel the need to sacrifice themselves to assuage men’s appetites?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I wanted an example of a good thesis as I prepare to undertake my first in anthropology and was advised to read ‘Melting Snowflakes – Are Labia the Great Equaliser’ by Lindy McDougall. While it has nothing to do with my focus and I find it suffers from the repetitive tendency of all anthropological work,… Continue reading Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[50,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}