"....but what is the systemic confluence of tradition, religion, sexual politics, gender economics, education, politics, healthcare etc. that keeps something like FGM in place? And how do we break that system?"
writes my friend Marshall in response to my plinth self-PR. And he is right (check out his work at: www.idiagram.com). The skeins of FGM interweave and can sometimes seem so dense that it might be easier to find some other life's purpose. But purpose tends to do that to one - pull you in and not let you go....
The root of the systemic confluence is female empowerment. Why should women be empowered in patriarchal communities that have been propped up for centuries and are reliant on women's obedience, women's bodies and women's control?
If even the women themselves have appropriated their own means of submission and inflict this on their daughters, this indeed is a tough cycle to break.
But perhaps my mission is just to find the end of the skein of the wool and start unravelling from there....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment