>>1681

>The next is my personal favorite, because it supports my proposition of who benefits
"A practice such as FGC is the best alternative only for a male who is attempting to control sexually a large number of females. It is not best for the controlled female, but under the circumstances, *it is better for her* than the alternative of nonmarriage."

well that's exactly my point as well, but I wonder why do you claim that it benefits men rather than women. It even clearly said there being cut is better than not being cut.
first it was said that it is beneficial for men who control *large number of females* while that's applicable only to ultrawelathy. poor/average men do not benefit from that as they only have one woman at best.
Next, it was mentioned several times in the whole article that there is no social pressure of any kind besides desire to get married.
And we can also make a guess that if woman is willing to marry poor man there will be no problem because there are plenty of undesirable men available if rich men are allowed to have multiple wives.
So logically mutilation benefits woman because the choice is not even between marriage and being single but between desirable and undesirable man.
Poor undesirable men have no standards and they do not(or even can't) require woman to be cut they are happy to get any woman at all. I guess that many of them even prefer uncut women because by design poor man is not hardworking or controlling or else he woud not be poor.

So by this logic how can you say that FGM does not benefit women? if it clearly improves female "carrier" perspectives but it has no benefit for majority of men. Yes maybe if does benefit ultrarich men, just like education benefits employers, by giving them wider choice of candidates but that is female logic where undesirable men simply do not exist in the world at all. And whatever is necessary to get that rich man or at least to be eligible to enter the competition is considered absolute necessity.


>I'm not sure I get this. Do you mean that in "their" culture it is valid and acceptable and "we" are not entitled to criticize it?

Not exactly that as I do not have any respect for any culture. I even consider myself as outsider of society and loot at it as anthropologist so I do not criticize anything but just analyze it and try to find out how it works. All cultures are acceptable because they are result of evolution and if they exist they are valid in aspect of survival.

The main issue here is that the top priority goal for women in their culture(and also partially in our culture) is marriage with high value man and whatever is done in name of marriage is absolutely justified.

If you want to eliminate FGM rather than complaining about how barbaric or destructive it is you have to complain about the end goals. Or else you sound like feminist who wants to retain all privileges of traditional women but also gain all benefits of traditional men.