Soraya Mire (Somali filmmaker, Fire Eyes) in her endorsement of the video Whose Body, Whose Rights?
“The painful cries of little boys being circumcised remind me of my own painful experience of female genital mutilation. It is the norm in my culture to mutilate girls, as it is in the U.S. for boys. It really terrifies me to know this. Hopefully this film will educate Americans about the harmful effects of male genital mutilation.” Gloria Steinem (Introductory remarks to panel discussion of FGM, part of the “About Women” series held by the 92nd Street Young Women & Men s Hebrew Association, New York City, 6 October 1997) “I would like to remind us that we all share patriarchy, which is the pillar of almost every current political system, capitalist or socialist. And it has a rock bottom requirement, the control of women s bodies as the most basic means of production, the means of reproduction. This control is used to determine how many workers a family, group or nation has and who owns children These patriarchal controls limit men s sexuality too, but to a much, much lesser degree. Th
