IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v35y1992i6p777-787.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Female circumcision and gender identity: A questionable alliance?

Author

Listed:
  • Van Der Kwaak, Anke

Abstract

At least 87% of Somali women are infibulated at the age of 7 or 8. Infibulation, also known as Pharaonic circumcision, is the most drastic form of female circumcision. The article examines the rationale for and the consequences of this practice, in particular in Somalia. Contrasting points of view can be identified in the attitudes towards female circumcision; for example, while it increases women's value in Somali eyes, it often degrades them in the eyes of the outside world. It is argued that the incidence of the practice should be reduced and that policies directed towards this aim should be an integral part of other development policies. Since women's gender identity is at stake, women should be actively involved in formulating and implementing the necessary policies. Their involvement is one of the main prerequisites for progress in the abolition of infibulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Van Der Kwaak, Anke, 1992. "Female circumcision and gender identity: A questionable alliance?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 777-787, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:35:y:1992:i:6:p:777-787
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(92)90077-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gibson, Mhairi A. & Gurmu, Eshetu & Chua, Regina & Van Bavel, Hannelore & Myers, Sarah, 2023. "Abandoning female genital mutilation/cutting (FGMC) is an emerging but costly parental investment strategy in rural Ethiopia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    2. Robert Freymeyer & Barbara Johnson, 2007. "An exploration of attitudes toward female genital cutting in Nigeria," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 26(1), pages 69-83, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:35:y:1992:i:6:p:777-787. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.