Liselott Dellenborg

This understanding of sexuality and the self is not universal, but a specific Euro-American culture model. By reacting according to this model, Westerners commonly draw conclusions that give rise to misleading implications of female circumcision. An illustrative example can be drawn from an advert found in a Swedish newspaper. Instead of ‘Seminar on female genital mutilation’, it said ‘Seminar on mutilated femininity’. The Somali women present at the seminar were deeply humiliated and angrily pointed out that “It is our genitals that are mu­tilated, not our femininity.”