Trust The Punch to sneak in a Sophie Mirabella column when honest folk are going about the business of making a living, and what's more, one with the most astonishing anti-semitic rant I've encountered for some time.
Cultural tolerance is no excuse for harming kids, she scribbles as she fumes, her target being genital mutilation.
Well of course we all deplore genital mutilation, especially as applied to children who have no idea of consent and no realistic way to give it.
But where does this leave circumcision?
As usual, the wiki has compelling information on this sordid practice:
Dear lord, is Sophie suggesting that Jews and Muslims be kicked out of Australia for practising ritual genital mutilation of children? Or at least sent to jail?
Whenever this touchy subject comes up, men I know carry on endlessly about how they were nicked without their consent, and how it's affected their sex life, and they conjure up long repressed Freudian memories of their penis under assault as they went under the knife. (On the other hand, there are those who love having been nicked, and see it as some scarred badge of cleanliness honour).
To listen to the poor dears with mother issues, it's almost as if they were juvenile John Bobbitts being given a hard time by the matriarchy. And as usual the full to overflowing intertubes has dire answers to that crucial male matter, sexual sensitivity. Why there's Does Circumcision Decrease Sexual Sensitivity, and a whole website dedicated to the issue - warning shocking drawings of male thingies.
Anyhoo, you all can relax. As you might expect from Sophie, her column's actually got nothing to do with a careful consideration of genital mutilation in all its forms, and all its motivations.
Instead it's a chance to kick the migrant can, and as you might expect she deploys a variant of the Denise Martin Law, or defence, recently established in this place:
“I date the blacks, I date the Mexicans. I date 'em all for comedy. You can't buy that kind of gold. Having sex with a guy once is worth it.”
Sophie's Law is a variant. If you're a child born of migrants, you can lecture other migrants.
I am an Australian-born child of Greek migrants myself. I know that in the strong traditional Greek culture that existed in many similar families, girl-children were not always afforded the same educational and social opportunities as male heirs.
But hang on, since a lot of us are children of migrants, does that mean we can all go around lecturing everybody else?
Sure thing. So Sophie, quickly as she can, jumps from the genital mutilation of girls to a whole host of migrant offences:
... while we welcome those aspects of any migrant’s culture that enrich our nation, we must categorically reject any aspect that diminishes our existing rights and freedoms.
That includes not just female genital mutilation – but also honour killings, forced arranged marriages, under-age marriage and any other form of “culture” that is implicitly violent, not to mention entirely sexist in its nature.
Under age marriage and forced arranged marriages? Dearie, who's going to tell the fundie Christians in our midst?
Well it all leaves me a trifle confused, a trifle puzzled, since most of what Sophie talks about doesn't go down in a civilised society and isn't likely to go down, while genital mutilation happens routinely ... to boys.
Is it okay to get out the kitchen knife and slice up dicks? You know, put on a Glenn Close look, and hoe in with a bit of Fatal Attraction?
Of course Sophie wouldn't like you to think that she's just out for a bit of migrant bashing:
Yes but what about dicks? Now I'm sure it's okay to pierce your ears, and if you're kinky to indulge in a little mutilation of whatever you want to mutilate, and there's nothing wrong with tattoos if you want to display your connection to the primitive, but truth to tell I almost fainted when I had my ears pierced, so there's no use asking me about piercings of any kind.
But what about dicks? Are we about to start a campaign to save dicks? You know, on very practical grounds that spare the menfolk circumcision, and spare women having to listen to men blather on about not feeling whole, and having lost a part of themselves and wishing that like tree-hugging female hippies, they could have at least buried the lost nick beside the placenta under a noble gum tree out in the backyard.
It seems so, if we remember Sophie's stern words:
What we need is to assert that such practices are not tolerated in our nation – whether carried out in the name of “tradition”, “culture” or anything else.
Yes, damn all this mutilation in the name of tradition and culture. Let's return to the days of clip earrings!
But what about the Jews and the Muslims? Is this a call to kick them out of Australia and send them back to Poland or Germany? Has Sophie done a Helen Thomas?
Those who chose to live here must obey the rules we have in place – and, whether we have explicit laws outlawing FGM or not (in fact, in the nineties most states did enact specific laws) - as criminal law stands, the violent act of cutting or piercing a young girls clitoris is well and truly child-abuse of a terrible kind.
No, no, no. You see, dick abuse is culturally acceptable and entirely proper. Thanks to the wiki, we learn this:
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP; 2009) state that "after extensive review of the literature [they do] not recommend that routine circumcision in infancy be performed, but [accept] that parents should be able to make this decision with their doctors. One reasonable option is for routine circumcision to be delayed until males are old enough to make an informed choice. In all cases where parents request a circumcision for their child the medical attendant is obliged to provide accurate information on the risks and benefits of the procedure. Up-to-date, unbiased written material summarising the evidence should be widely available to parents. In the absence of evidence of substantial harm, parental choice should be respected."
Oh you wretched quislings and sell outs and fellow travellers and half-baked cultural relativists! You don't really approve and there's no stern medical reasons, and yet you'll go along with what the parents decide! Has Sophie got some stern words for you:
And as for the excuse proffered for doing so – it’s not medical, nor is it even religious – it’s a “cultural thing”.
Yes, chopping up dicks is a perfectly acceptable "cultural thing". But is it right? Imagine if Sophie had written this:
Those who chose to live here must obey the rules we have in place – and, whether we have explicit laws outlawing penis cutting or not or not (in fact, in the twenty tens, the new Liberal government has enacted specific laws) - as criminal law stands, the violent act of cutting or piercing a young boy's penis is well and truly child-abuse of a terrible kind.
Oh brave, rational, entirely consistent Sophie.
Of course, it used to be part of our own western culture that women were strapped into chastity belts and their choices did not extend to even voting, let alone working or being elected to Parliament. “Traditions” we have rightly abandoned.
Actually, and here once again we must consult the invaluable wiki, the notion of chastity belts is much celebrated, but barely in evidence in real history. It turns out that historical evidence of actual devices is pretty scanty - check out chastity belt for a few surviving examples - and they've really only flourished thanks to the fetish of Victorians obsessed with the evils of masturbation (a unisex issue) and to modern BDSM types (again a unisex thing).
But never let actual facts get in the way of a mythologising rant. The actual oppression of women is more subtle and nuanced, and it was pleasing to see that Tony Abbott has continued that strand of thinking by wanting to give stay at home women a handy ten thousand smackeroos. Well I guess if you think women shouldn't be out and about working, but should stay at home, that kind of inducement makes sense.
But when you're in the middle of a galloping rant, it's hard to remember that a lot of conservatives actually rabbit on at length, and even in these liberated times, about the right place for women.
Why for a moment or two, Sophie actually sounds like a rampant Germaine Greer style feminist:
Our culture has evolved to recognise the basic human rights of women – and it’s essential that all cultures do. We should demand nothing less.
Steady, steady, let's not get too excited, let's not get down to the nitty gritty:
While I sympathise with the feminist struggle to have more women on boards and address the pay-gap inequity, the priority of modern feminism must be to ensure that women around the world are not violently subjugated in the name of culture or religion.
Oh yes, feminists heed the words of Sophie. Get agitated about things that aren't happening anywhere in your neck of the woods, and get terribly agitated about the things that Sophie is agitated about. Turn yourselves into cultural warriors, and go bomb Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh wait, we've done that already, and I'm sure the many civilians killed are pleased they haven't been violently subjugated in the name of culture or religion.
Pshaw, anyhoo, women on boards and the gender pay-gap inequity, and dozens of other subtle and nuanced forms of discrimination can go into the too hard basket, especially in the Liberal party's too hard basket. They're nothing, nothing I tells ya. Because having a bash at migrant customs is so much easier and so much more fun, and so totally righteous:
Because there is a real chance in today’s culture of political correctness, that western nations will become too afraid of being labelled “intolerant” to voice opposition to such atrocities against women.
Because you see somehow political correctness will fall into line. Unlike valiant Christians like Tony Abbott, as they vigorously campaign against the Catholic church's refusal to allow women to carry out priestly duties. Now there's a feminist in action ...
As I gaze at the cherubic face of my baby daughter, I can’t help wondering about the other baby girls throughout the world who will not enjoy the freedom and choices that she has as her birthright.
Oh indeed, and here at the pond, we stand shoulder to shoulder with Sophie on the genital mutilation of women and girls and children. Provided, I suppose, that children only means girls.
But we also happen to think, in the name of political correctness, that a little attention to pay and board rooms wouldn't go astray either. Not to mention the abandonment of the Catholic church and those variant patriarchal heresies the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches ...
But that's just us, always indignant at the Pellist heresy and the Jensenist nepotism.
Now we eagerly await Sophie's campaign against the genital mutilation of young boys, and the happy role she can play in dissuading Jews and Muslims from following their cultural religious fetishes.
It's too late for those who drone on and on in my ear about the memories embedded deep in their brain at the way their dick was savaged, but lordy, now we have Sophie on the case, and being very stern, won't someone think of the boy children and their future sense of loss ...
And now, since it's been awhile since we've done a reading, here's Philip Roth in The Counterlife:
And this from a character in the book in favour of circumcision! Not to worry, Jesus was circumcised, so if it's okay for god, where's the harm in a little genital mutilation:
They circumcised women, little girls, in Jesus’s time. Did he know? Did the subject anger or embarrass him? Did the early church erase the record? Jesus himself was circumcised; perhaps he thought only the cutting done to him was done to women, and therefore, since he survived, it was all right. Alice Walker
(Below: behold, what strange device is this?)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments older than two days are moderated and there will be a delay in publishing them.