Dr Kai Möller has just published an article in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies on the question of male and female genital cutting. The article challenges the coherence of the law according to which male genital cutting is in principle permissible and female genital cutting is a crime. Möller demonstrates that the justifications given for this differential treatment - relating to the harm involved in the respective practices, possible medical benefits of male cutting, the absence of a religious motivation with regard to female cutting, and patriarchal power structures enabling female but not male cutting - are insufficient. Instead, he advances a novel argument according to which the genital cutting of children is wrong as a matter of principle. This provides a convincing basis for the rejection of all forms of female genital cutting, including comparatively mild ones such as ritual nicks, and furthermore leads to the conclusion that male cutting, too, must be regarded as impermissible.
click here to read Dr Möller's article