Genital Cutting Across Borders: Sociocultural Biases in Global Responses to the Non-therapeutic Genital Cutting of Children

Debra DeLaet (Drake University)

3 May, 2-3:30pm, Arts A04 / Zoom

- register to receive the link 5 minutes before the event is due to start (it will also be available on the online event page from this time)

This seminar will discuss divergent international responses to cross-cultural genital cutting practices, including female genital cutting (FGC), male genital cutting (MGC), and intersex genital cutting (IGC). A growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship challenges all forms of non-therapeutic genital cutting performed on children. There also has been an expansion of transnational human rights advocacy on this issue. The global political contestation of genital cutting practices involves potential conflicts between parental rights and children’s rights, tensions between religious and secular conceptions of rights, and social constructions of gender that entrench cross-cultural beliefs in a male/female binary and that are more likely to depict girls and women as victims. In contrast with broad global condemnation of FGC, there has been minimal global criticism of MGC practices. The global response to IGC has been mixed. These divergent global responses to genital cutting practices reveals sociocultural biases that lead international actors to defer to parental rights and cultural considerations in some cases but not others. This seminar will review the competing human rights issues at stake in these debates. It also will raise questions about how global responses to genital cutting connect to political debates regarding gender affirming care for transgender children.

Speaker Biography:

Debra L. DeLaet is the David E. Maxwell Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Drake University. She is the author of U.S. Immigration Policy in an Age of Rights (2000), The Global Struggle for Human Rights (3rd edition in progress), and (co-authored with David E. DeLaet) Global Health in the 21st Century (2012). She also has published numerous articles and book chapters on human rights, global health, and global gender issues. Professor DeLaet is particularly interested in human rights in everyday politics and in investigating how to translate abstract global norms into concrete human rights practices within communities.