By Jon Leonard
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 17, 1997

Male mutilation ignored in column

Editor:

This letter is in response to Jennifer McKean's column on Female Genital Mutilation. Why are we, as Americans so concerned with a ritual in some other country? At the same time that all those girls in Somalia are undergoing female circumcision a million or so infant baby boys will be undergoing circumcision in our own country. Is it that the conditions are so unsanitary in Somalia? If so then maybe you should focus your support on making the conditions that female circumcision are practiced in more sanitary. Or maybe we, as Americans, should not mutilate our children regardless of sex.

Here in America we use the same excuses for male genital mutilation that the mothers in Somalia use to mutilate their girls. Did you know that a "circumcised" girl is considered to be cleaner? Hmmm, that sounds familiar. And you mentioned that mothers in Somalia don't want their girls to be social outcasts. Wow, I wonder how many mothers in America will perform male genital mutilation because they fear the boy will be laughed at in the locker room. Maybe the mothers in America are just a bunch of superstitious sheep following the herd, just like the mothers in Somalia.

By the way, Jennifer, do you have the strength of character to resist social pressure and not circumcise a baby boy if you have one? Or will you follow the herd?

Jon Leonard
Mechanical engineering senior