Honorable Daughters
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HONORABLE DAUGHTERS: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF CIRCUMCISED SUDANESE WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Education of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Asma Mohamed Abdel Halim June 2003 2003 Asma Mohamed Abdel Halim All Rights Reserved This dissertation entitled HONORABLE DAUGHTERS: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF CIRCUMCISED SUDANESE WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES By Asma Mohamed Abdel Halim has been approved for the Department of Educational Studies And the College of Education by William Stephen Howard Associate Professor of Educational Studies James Heap Dean, the College of Education ABDEL HALIM, ASMA, MOHAMED Ph.D. June 2003. Educational Studies HONORABLE DAUGHTERS: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF CIRCUMCISED SUDANESE WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES (272 pp.) Director of Dissertation: William Stephen Howard ABSTRACT This is a qualitative study of the experiences of circumcised Sudanese women in the United States. It is done to find out whether the immigration experience has affected the cultural perceptions of women, in particular their views about female circumcision (FC). Questions are focused on what exactly has changed in their lives that resulted in a change of attitude or behavior. Three focus groups of women of different age groups participated in the research. One woman of each group was interviewed in depth. Open ended questions and semi structured interviews were conducted. Participants were allowed to ask questions and answer questions during the meetings. Debates around gender relations and family relations inside the homes were quite useful to the analysis of information gathered during lengthy interviews with individual women. Literature from broad areas of immigration, human rights, FC, cultural studies and qualitative research methods and feminist theory was reviewed. The study found that there is a change in women’s perception of their culture and a high level of awareness of why the change came about. Change in gender relations inside the home is the main change for immigrant Sudanese women. Despite strong ties with the home culture these changes are accepted as good and necessary. There is an activism side to their change of attitude towards FC; it is no longer lip service to change. The married women’s group is determined to use the acquired decision-making power to protect their daughters from the practice. The study found that this activism edge stemmed from their personal experiences of humiliation and horror during childbirth. Younger unmarried women saw FC as a practice that deprived them of their bodily integrity and took away their ability to make their own decisions. Older women did not change their mind about the “benefits” of FC but saw it as detrimental to their granddaughters’ health and status in the United States. Approved: William Stephen Howard Associate Professor of Educational Studies Dedicated To my grandmothers Batoul bit Ibrahim Abu Ras and Ni’ema bit Alrigayyig, who were feminists before the term feminist was coined ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to my adviser professor William Stephen Howard for his continuous help. He helped me shape this study from the start. I am thankful to him for reading my proposal and then the chapters of this thesis and suggesting valuable ideas. My committee: professor Naji Muhammad who suggested excellent literature, professor Lisa Aubrey and professor Sholeh Quinn for posing certain questions and for their continuous encouragement. Their enthusiasm for this study was a strong incentive for me. My gratitude goes to Dr. Abdullahi An-Na’im for his valuable support during the last difficult days of this research. I wish to thank the women who participated in this research to whom I refer in the study with fictitious names. They came to the meetings from different parts of the city and adjacent towns. My endless gratitude goes to the women who opened their homes for me and showered me with their hospitality. They were welcoming and enthusiastic for this study. Special thanks goes to the women who suggested names of participants, arranged the groups, set the times for meetings and offered their homes for those long meetings. Their hospitality was a major factor in the success of using wanasa as a method in this study. This message of gratitude will not be complete without mentioning the husbands who were supportive of their wives who participated in this research. I am grateful to them for warmly and unconditionally welcoming me in their homes. I wish to thank my family, my sister-in-law Hanan Mirghani, my brother Omer and their children Hassan and Hussam for providing a special corner in their house for five months. I thank my parents and siblings. My father, who died when I began this program, was a school teacher with a passion for education and could not hide his pleasure and support that I opted for education rather than my profession as a lawyer. I am endlessly grateful to my mother, who is still supporting all my efforts, for sending her five times a day prayers. Last but not least my thanks to Ohio University for making my endeavor easier through a scholarship that made this study possible. 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................. 12 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 12 Leaving Home............................................................................................................... 12 The Participants ............................................................................................................ 17 Historical Background of Female Circumcision........................................................... 18 What is FC?............................................................................................................... 18 The History of FC ..................................................................................................... 20 FC and Islam............................................................................................................. 23 Cultural Grounds for FC ........................................................................................... 28 Survival or Assimilation? ............................................................................................. 32 Is FC Worthy of Recognition as a Cultural Practice?............................................... 32 Politics of Recognition as a Useful “Tradition” in Cultural Interaction................... 35 What’s in a Name?........................................................................................................ 37 The International Women’s Movement........................................................................ 43 The Law and Human Rights Debate............................................................................. 46 The Significance of the Research ................................................................................. 53 Summary....................................................................................................................... 54 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................ 57 LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 57 Introduction................................................................................................................... 57 Qualitative Research ..................................................................................................... 58 Medical Views and Health Consequences.................................................................... 60 Culture and human Rights ............................................................................................ 64 Anthropological and Cultural studies of FC ................................................................. 66 Feminist and Gender Studies ........................................................................................ 72 Immigrants .................................................................................................................... 74 African programs combating FC .................................................................................. 76 Other Sources................................................................................................................ 78 CHAPTER THREE........................................................................................................ 80 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY .................................... 80 Introduction................................................................................................................... 80 Feminism as Theory and Perspective ........................................................................... 81 Wanasa as Methodology............................................................................................... 96 10 CHAPTER FOUR......................................................................................................... 107 PART ONE.................................................................................................................... 107 ISOLATION IN A FAR AWAY