- Spivak of Jacques Derrida's ‘deconstruction’ in Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present Harvard University Press USA 1999 p 435.
- Haraway Donna Simians, Cyborgs and Women Routledge New York 1991 p 155.
- The Family Law Council is a federal body in Australia that researches issues and recommends legislative changes or alterations to government policy to the Attorney-General on the basis of its research. It is able to initiate its own research topics or can be requested by the Attorney-General to explore areas related to ‘family law’.
- Family Law Council Female Genital Mutilation: A Discussion Paper Australian Government Publishing Service January 1994.
- Throughout this paper I will use the terms infibulation or pharaonic circumcision, clitoridectomy, circumcision and sunna where I am referring to the practices of communities that have come to be translated into these English terms. While this list is not remotely comprehensive it serves to highlight the point that there is more than one practice in existence. I will use the terms ‘female genital mutilation’ or FGM when I am referring to these concepts as discursive productions or where they are used within other texts.
- Family Law Council Female Genital Mutilation: A Report to the Attorney-General Australian Government Publishing Service June 1994.
- Derrida Jacques Margins of Philosophy Harvester Wheatsheaf New York 1982 pp 8–9.
- In agreement with the work of Gayatri Spivak I will use of the capital S when discussing the Subject of the West, to highlight the positioning of a Western subject as central in Western discussions of ‘others’.
- Derrida Jacques Of Grammatology (trans Gayatri Spivak) Johns Hopkins University Press London 1974 (first published 1967 in French).
- Boddy Janice ‘Violence Embodied? Circumcision, Gender Politics, and Cultural Aesthetics’ in Emerson Dobash and Russell Dobash (eds) Rethinking Violence Against Women Sage Publications California 1998 p 77.
- Hosken Fran The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females (3rd ed) Women's International Network News Lexington MA 1982; Daly Mary Gynlecology: the Metaethics of Radical Feminism Beacon Press Canada 1978.
- SBS, ‘An Act Of Love’ The Cutting Edge Series Australia 29 June 1994; ‘Editorial’ Sydney Morning Herald 26 February 1994; ‘A Legacy Of Betrayal’ Cosmopolitan February 1994 p 105.
- Family Law Council above note 6 at 62–3.
- As above at 2.
- As above at 3 (their emphasis).
- Crimes (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 1996 (Vic) s 32, 33.
- It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the possible historical rationale for the legislation in Australia that might consider the Act as a racist violence more directly, however it is worth considering that the media images and general discussions about the practices emerged strongly in the years immediately post the Gulf War and that ‘female genital mutilation’ is almost always associated with Islam in both the printed and electronic media, despite the constant assertion of evidence to the contrary. These factors suggest that perhaps the elevated fear of Muslim others and Muslim practices entering Australian shores could also have encouraged Australians to support the creation of legislation which effectively positions difference as a criminal act and suggests that it can be ‘put away’ if it gets out of hand.
- While it is not the project of this article to further argue the authorising ‘force of law’, this has been well discussed within the seminal work of Jacques Derrida ‘Force of the Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”’ (1990) 11 Cardozo Law Review 919 at 924, the authority enabled through the production of the Crimes (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 1996 is certainly worth bearing in mind. For a further discussion of this see Rogers Juliet ‘Managing Cultural Diversity in Australia: Legislating Female Circumcision, Legislating Communities’ in Hernland Ylva, Fuambai Amahdu and Shell-Duncan Bettina (eds) Female Genital Cutting in the World: The Challenge of a Cross-Cultural Encounter California University Press US, in press.
- WHO describes Type IV practices as including ‘pricking, piercing or incising of the clitoris and/or labia: stretching…’: see World Health Organisation Female Genital Mutilation: A Joint WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA Statement Geneva 1997 p 3.
- Family Law Council above note 6 at 3.
- For examples see Hosken above note 11; Daly above note 11; WHO above note 19; Walker Alice Possessing the Secret of Joy Vintage London 1992; Manresa Kim The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life Spinifex Press Melbourne 1998.
- Rogers above note 18.
- Shell-Duncan Bettina and Hernland Ylva ‘Introduction’ in Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernland (eds) Female Circumcision in Africa California University Press California 2000.
- For further discussions on relationship between male and female circumcision see Ahmadu Fuambai ‘Rites and Wrongs: excision and power among Kono Women of Sierra Leone’ in above note 23 at 488; Boddy above note 10 at 90, 101 and 110.
- For examples see ‘Like A Virgin: Intimate Plastic Surgery’ Cosmopolitism Magazine 1994 p 18.
- During the time of the media outrage in 1993/94 a young African female student was asked in a Victorian tertiary institution to draw ‘female genital mutilation’ on the board for the class. This women neither studied nor worked with the practices at the time, but was asked to draw this as if she could represent all genitalia for all ‘mutilated women’. As if, through virtue of her culture and gender, she had innate knowledge of all the practices: personal communication.
- Family Law Council above note 6 at 6.
- The ‘imaginary’ is used here in a Lacanian sense of the world of the subject being represented through an imagination which enables the constitution of the subject. For a discussion of this see Lacan Jacques The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954–1955 Jacques Alain Miller (ed) WW Norton & Company New York 1978.
- It is not within the parameters of this article to engage in a discussion of the many complex mechanisms of subjugation employed towards women from migrant communities who were already organising in Victoria at this time to prevent the practices. For a discussion and analysis of this see Rogers above note 18.
- Foucault Michel Power/Knowledge: Selected Writings 1972–1977 Colin Gordon (ed) Pantheon Books New York 1972 p 93.
- Spivak above note 1 at 261.
- The use of ‘recognisable’ in this context is intended to exemplify the critique well developed in the work of Michel Foucault in his discussion of ‘systems of thought’ which enable certain things to be ‘recognised’ in particular ways that suggest their relationship to other things. This is most developed in his discussion of ‘representation’ in Foucault Michel The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences Vintage Books New York 1970.
- The Eritrean Women's Group (EWG) were a government funded body at the time of the ‘consultation process’ who had developed models of dialogue based health promotion to assist with the discontinuation of the practices. They were not consulted by the Family Law Council.
- Family Law Council above note 6 at 36.
- As above.
- As above at 4.
- Manresa above note 21.
- Report of the ‘United Nations Working group on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children’ in Family Law Council above note 6 at 30.
- El Sadawi Nawal ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ Coming Out! Women's Voices, Women's Lives 1985 p 84; cited in Family Law Council above note 6 at 32.
- Family Law Council above note 6 21.
- Kirby Vicky ‘On the Cutting Edge: Feminism and Clitoridectomy’ (1987) 5 (Summer) Australian Feminist Studies.
- Hosken above note 11 at 2, 14 (my emphasis).
- This argument is further elaborated in Boddy above note 10.
- Foucault Michel The History of Sexuality: An Introduction Penguin Group England 1978 pp 140–143, cited in Kirby above note 41 at 43.
- Spivak Gayatri ‘Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism’ (1985) Critical Inquiry 12 at 242–61.
- Gandhi Leela Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction Allen and Unwin NSW 1998.
- Boddy above note 10 at 89.
- Boddy Janice Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan University of Wisconsin Press Madison 1989 p 56.
- Hosken above note 11; Daly above note 11.
- Salecl Renata (Per)versions of Love and Hate Verso London 1998 p 144 (footnote 5).
- Obermeyer Carla ‘Female Genital Surgeries: The Known, The Unknown and the Unknowable’ (1999) Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19 at 92.
- As above.
- As above at 24.
- Rich Susan and Joyce Stephanie ‘FGM Eradication Programs’ for the Special Projects Fund of Population Action International 1992.
- Obermeyer above note 51.
- Boddy Janice ‘Remembering Amal: On Birth and the British in Northern Sudan’ in Lock Margaret and Kaufert Patricia (eds) Pragmatic Women and Body Politics Cambridge University Press Cambridge 1998.
- Michel Foucault above note 30 at 81.
- El Sadawi above note 39 at 84 in Family Law Council above note 6 at 32.
- See Ahmadu above note 24; Boddy above note 10.
- El Sadawi above note 39 in Family Law Council above note 6 at 32 (my emphasis).
- Family Law Council above note 6 at 9.
- As above.
- Salecl above note 50 at 143.
- Toubia Nahid Female Genital Mutilation: A Call for Global Action UN Working Group on Traditional Practices 1993 p 40 cited in Family Law Council above note 6 at 22 (my emphasis).
- Abu-el-Futuh Shandall Ahmed ‘Circumcision and Infibulation of Females’ (1967) 5 Sudan Medical Journal 178 cited in Boddy above note 10 at 88.
- Lightfoot-Klein Hanni ‘The Sexual Experience and Marital Adjustment of Genitally Circumcised and Infibulated Females in Sudan’ (1989) 26(3) Journal of Sex Research 375–392 cited in Boddy above note 11 at 88.
- Ahmadu above note 24 at 524.
- Hite Shere The Hite Report Dell New York 1976.
- For further discussions of this see Grosz Elizabeth ‘Inscriptions and Body Maps: Representation and the Corporeal’ in Threadgold Terry and Canny-Francis Anne (eds) Feminine/Masculine/Representation Routledge New York 1990; Grosz Elizabeth ‘Notes Towards a Corporeal Feminism’ (1987) Australian Feminist Studies 5; Butler Judith Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity Routledge New York 1990; specifically in relation to infibulation, circumcision, clitoridectomy and sunna see Boddy above note 10; Kirby above note 41.
- Kirby above note 41 at 44.
- Grosz above note 69.
- As above at 64.
Australian Feminist Law Journal
Volume 18, 2003 - Issue 1
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