>On Mon, 16 Jun 1997, Neil Rest wrote:
>
>> Liposuction is not "pretty much the same thing" as clitoridectomy. The
>> assertion is false. Your statement suggests that you deliberately amplify
>> the emotional preconceptions which cloud your perceptions, rather than try
>> to recognize them.
>
Consider, however, that you
>could have made that simple statement to contradict Laura's without the
>loaded words that you chose. If I were Laura, I'd be wounded. I'd read
>them as a personal attack. I want to make a plea that we try to discuss,
>disagree and even argue with each other without trying to take it out of
>each other's hides.
>
>-nalo
Thank you, Nalo. Neil's response was so startlingly (is there such a
word?) aggressive that I had chosen not to respond at all. It was far too
tempting for me to respond to his attack in my own attack mode. And I
hoped that my declining to get seduced into such an exchange would help
serve as a model for self-restraint, something I Most Definitely Do Not
excel at, in real life! (And I won't even TOUCH on how mysogynistic his
"emotional preconceptions which cloud your perceptions" comment was!
Egads! What year is this?!?! What planet am I on?!?!) However, as to
your assertion that.....
>Female genital infibulation is societally
>enforced mutilation; liposuction is not.
.....well to _that_ I take exception! :-) (naturally)
How is it that neither of you can accept liposuction or breast enlargement
or facelifts as societally enforced? I can agree that it's not
_physically_ enforced, but just because no one's holding these women down
and scraping off their hips with a jagged tin can lid doesn't mean their
_motivation_ isn't based on societal influence. Do you _really_ think a
woman going under the knife to have her breasts enlarged _isn't_ basing her
body-image on the crap she sees on TV, in the movies, or, worst of all,
fashion magazines? Ask any woman with an eating disorder if she feels
influenced by our media. The average American woman is 5'4" and weighs 145
pounds. How many women like that do _you_ see on TV? Every time I hear a
woman putting herself down, I ask her to ignore the media for a week. If
she wants to compare herself to other women, compare herself to women in
real life. Not one woman who has taken my advice and performed this
experiment has ever come back to tell me I was wrong. In fact, they all
come back to me feeling pretty damn gorgeous! As they should!
I still stand by my claim that both the little African girl having her
genitals scraped off and sewn up and the woman in Beverly Hills going in
for a little tuck are still victims of the same bullshit - society telling
women how their bodies should conform. Period. And that's _with_ my
emotional preconceptions recognized, Neil!
Peace,
Laura
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