Racism, Feminism, and the Issue of FGE

Posted by Jack Stephens | February 13th, 2008 | Crossposted from The Blog and the Bullet

Plain(s)feminist blogs about Female Genital Excision (FGE), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and the issue of white Western feminists focusing more on the brutalities against women in Third World countries than in the Western world:

There seems to be no way to get a certain segment of the feminist population to understand that it is possible both to oppose practices like FGE and still seek to use respectful terminology. This is perceived as attempting to “whitewash” (an interesting phrase, since we’re talking about mostly White women slinging racist slurs as mostly Black women) the issue. In fact, on several occasions when this issue has come up, it has progressed in the following way:

One Response to “Racism, Feminism, and the Issue of FGE”

  1. Silenced is Foo Writes:

    I think it’s sad that so much political debate is becoming centered around people using emotionally-charged language to discuss an issue. People flinging around words that may or may not be technically true, but still are obviously intended to incite anger.


Leave a Reply

If you have questions about the moderation policies here, please read this post. Short version: treat other posters with respect.

(Need to know how to create blockquotes and links, i.e., linked text?)

If your submitted comment fails to appear, without even an error or "waiting for moderation" message, then our spam-blocking program may have blocked your comment by mistake. When this happens, please contact the moderators right away so we can rescue your comment!

Markup Controls