“Female Genital Mutilation” in Malaysia from the Viewpoint of Sexuality and the Female Body

Abstract

This study situates “female genital mutilation (FGM)” in Malaysia in the politics of the female body and sexuality in post-colonial societies. There has been a global dispute over “FGM,” centering on the opposition between human rights and the protection of local culture. In order to overcome the deadlock, in the 1990s several studies started to view the dispute as the politics of discourse in the Foucaultian sense. Some of them argued that the female body was restructured as an object of reproductive health in the system of state medicine. Considering the studies mentioned above, this paper argues how the discourses on “FGM” (either in favor or against) promote the domination of the female body and sexuality in Malaysia. This study shows that the medical scientific perspective was predominant in religious as well as academic discourses. This might indicate the medical control of sexuality and the female body through the construction of discourses concerning “FGM” in Malaysia. In contrast to the religious and academic discourses, rural people in Malaysia view “FGM” as an unconscious practice deeply embedded in their communities. They do not know about the existence of the practice in African countries. This shows that there is a huge gap between academic discourses and local discourses on “FGM” in Malaysia.