Questioning Western stereotypes

The discrepancy between the Western and the Jola understanding of female cir­cumcision is striking. In considering the custom from an emic, or inner, point of view, the common Western stereotyped representations of those people that practise female circumcision are immediately challenged. We need to pose the question: if they are not reflected in ethnographic and empirical data, on what then are the common Western assumptions concerning female circumcision based? What emotions underlie the great concern and interest that the practice of female circumcision/female genital mutilation arouses in the Western world? Us­ing a reflexive approach, I suggest that far from being based on investigations conducted in a ‘scientific’ or ‘neutral’ way, Western reactions to excision are founded on a Western cultural and historical model of sexuality (cf. Parker 1995).