The Common Sense Cut and the Gendered Body Project

Abstract

The U.S. discourse regarding the practice of genital cutting differs depending on the perceived sex of the body. The authors understand this difference as crucial to the construction of gender normative body projects in the contemporary United States. Using a content analysis of 172 randomly sampled newspaper articles in the United States, we present differences in not only the value position of media but in the framing of genital alteration across sexes or genders and national contexts. We find that U.S. media overwhelmingly exhibits a positive viewpoint regarding the circumcision of male bodies and considers the question to be a fundamentally medical one. Our analysis suggests that while personal narrative is employed to center the personhood of females who have been circumcised, the device is also used to normalize parental choice when discussing male circumcision. Our analysis shows that U.S. media engages almost exclusively white male voices as experts in the discussion of normative male body presentation, while a relative diversity of opinions is deemed legitimate for female bodies and genitals. Given these findings, we argue that media-driven discourse is key to perpetuating the currently normative body projects that undergird conceptions of bodies as fundamentally different dependent on gender role.

Keywords

body projects cultural norms genital modification

Personal Reflexive Statement

Michaella Fitzpatrick is an active advocate for young people, focusing on Latinx heritage and members of the LBBTQ+ community. Natalie Delia Deckard is a long-term mentor and advocate for children’s interests. Both authors have commitments to children’s rights, bodily integrity, and justice. Although neither author takes a normative stance regarding elective circumcision, we are both critical of the prevailing cultural notions that treat the modification of male genitalia as normal or natural. We do not view circumcision as the sole question, however. Rather, we hope that we will see a larger intellectual engagement with questions of agency in gendered body projects.

Introduction

Normative body presentations are collectively constructed and adherence to these norms work to reinforce hegemonic ideas of identity (Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005). Issues of how the body should look, what modifications it should be subjected to, and who is a legitimate authority over these questions serve to underline existing ideas of what constitutes personhood in a particular space (Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005; Lupton 2012; Sanders 2016). As physical presentation becomes more connected to both individual choice and social identity in postmodern societies (Featherstone 1991), control over this presentation and its meaning becomes increasingly contentious. This is especially true for children’s bodies and particularly instructive in the ostensibly private domain of children’s genitals.

Our understandings of what gender means, and how bodies should conform, are a reflection of the societies in which we live—and both are constructions that work to uphold an existing social hierarchy. What the extant literature calls “body projects,” or attempts to create and maintain a coherent sense of identity through attention to and work on the body (Featherstone 1991; Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005), are engaged in by individuals to create bodies that conform to prevailing social norms. These projects can be understood, too, as performances of submission to dominant narratives of expertise.

These narratives are accomplished in the public discourse, created and amplified in the mass media. Existing views of the body are thus constructed in the pages of newspapers and on the glowing rectangles of computers, tablets, and televisions. Using experts, perpetrators, and victims to construct meaning around normative body projects, a common sense comes to be accepted in the public sphere (Habermas 1991). This common sense not only dictates, but mandates, community-based action on the individual body.

In this article, we question the ways in which print media sources play in integral part in perpetuating existing U.S. norms regarding the body projects that are appropriate for normatively gendered bodies. Using a content analysis of 172 newspaper articles, we present differences in not only the value position of media but in the framing of genital alteration between genders. We then investigate the different ways in which personal narrative is employed to turn genital cutting¹ into a personal affront on a victimized body or a valid personal choice—for parents. Additionally, we engage with the construction of expertise and legitimate authority in the question of female/vulval genital cutting in comparison to male/penile genital cutting, establishing who has a say in the presentation of the genitals of children.

Employing theories of the body project and hegemonic masculinity while building on existing scholarly knowledge regarding media and genital cutting, this article demonstrates clear distinctions in media coverage of genital cutting in the United States. The rationalized, medicalized conversation around male genital cutting (MGC) in the United States underlines the rationalized masculinity characteristic of the dominant culture. In contrast, the moralizing discourse through which U.S. audiences are made to understand female genital cutting (FGC) reflects contested norms for female-bodied actors. We present the ways in which these differences work to create a common sense regarding the cutting of children’s genitals.

Theoretical Background

Body Projects and Construction of the Gendered Body

Bodies are a reflection of the identities of their bearers and the roles individuals are meant to play in a given society. Body projects are the aggregation of the plans, actions, and work done to the body to effect the socially constructed ideal form of a desired social role. The seemingly all-encompassing social roles associated with normative gender expectations exert pressure to conform on all individuals (Brumberg 1997; Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005).

Extensive literature has investigated the body projects that are engaged in to achieve and maintain normative femininity (Bordo 1997, 2003; Brumberg 1997; Fausto-Sterling 2000). Although “[the] dominant rationality affirms the full success of feminist political movements and the mainstreaming of feminist consciousness as a strategy for delegitimating ongoing feminist politics and facilitating the reenchantment of women with feminine body and beauty ideals” (McRobbie 2009:1-12), existing norms for feminine beauty remain powerful and are now enforced at the level of the individual woman (Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005). The role of independent experts in articulating and affecting contemporary body norms cannot be overstated—the use of legitimated knowledges to compel individual to conform while perceiving themselves to be exercising free will is important in neoliberal regimes of free choice (Rose 1999).

No body escapes objectification or the pressure to engage in gender-oriented body projects today (Bordo 1999), men also experience pressure to embody unforgiving standards of normative masculinity (Beel and McNaughton 2007; Gill, Henwood, and McLean 2005). The existence of a socially constructed masculinity that appears both natural and overwhelmingly powerful to those living with and in it has also been much discussed in the existing literature (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Demetriou 2001; Donaldson 1993). Scholars have pointed to a hegemonic masculinity that creates what it is to be a man in a particular space (Connell and Connell 2005; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Demetriou 2001; Donaldson 1993). Recognizing the extent to which hegemonic masculinity shapes conceptions of gender roles, broadly, and masculinity, particularly, scholars demonstrate the ways in which masculine characteristics serve to dominate collective understandings of male bodies (Light and Kirk 2000: Potts 2000). Speaking to the importance of cultural norms of masculinity, Earp (2014) and Earp and Darby (2017) make the argument that these cultural norms guide the ways in which we understand and make meaning around the alteration of newborn boys’ genitals as distinct from those of girls.

Systems of hegemonic masculinity are theorized to reproduce through internal mechanisms (Donaldson 1993). That is, existing structures of masculinity are mirrored by social institutions, which then work to reinforce those masculinities. In the U.S. system, scholars posit that masculinity is characterized by emotional inexpressivity (Shamir and Travis 2002), sexism (Kimmel 2004; Ward 2005), and rationality (Ussher 2002). We argue that it is within this gender regime that MGC is understood and, ultimately, normalized.

Dominant in the prevailing U.S. masculinity is the construction of men as “tough.” Emotional expressivity has been constructed as being a feminine characteristic, and masculinity exists in its opposition (Nye 2005; Shamir and Travis 2002). In keeping with this facet of the masculine ideal, Fox and Thompson (2005) note that masculine invulnerability is prevalent in discourses surrounding the normalization of MGC, which rarely considers the pain experienced during the procedure. Similarly, Darby and Svoboda (2007) note that cost–benefit analyses of MGC nearly entirely neglect issues beyond medical risk—as though questions of male emotions regarding the body, or even questions about male feelings of sensuality, were irrelevant.

Rationality, defined by a balanced emotional and mental state as well as the need to make meaning out of experiences, similarly shapes the construction of hegemonic masculinity within the U.S. system (Ussher 2002). Control of self and rationality work together in order to create masculinity by insisting that all experiences are able to be controlled and available for dominations by a masculine figure. It is from this aspect of the construction of hegemonic masculinity that discourses of medicalization evolve. Concerns of bodily integrity, sexual pleasure, or aesthetic appearance are simply not relevant in this rational view of masculinity—issues of disease and hygiene are paramount (Darby and Svoboda 2007; Earp and Darby 2017; Fox and Thomson 2005).

The need to maintain a strict line between femininity and masculinity, with the latter dominant over the former, is integral to ideas of hegemonic masculinity (Kimmel and Mahler 2003). Thus, a process viewed as normative for the male form, but from which women are excluded, may be sufficient for the process to become viewed as inherently masculine. Benatar (2008) demonstrates this through the framework of Jewish egalitarians. Despite a demonstrated commitment to gender equality, the group considers circumcision to be necessary for male infants—and permits them to seal a divine covenant with the deity—but inconceivable for their female counterparts. Additionally, the opinions, beliefs, and expertise of women in questions of the normative male body may be entirely discounted.

These gender constructions not only affect the way that bodies present and are presented, they influence the type and extent of modifications made to those bodies. They dictate the ways in which we understand these modifications to be normal and indeed normative. Here, we explore the particular case of genital cutting of children as a body modification that is anchored in, and indeed works to amplify, existing gender norms.

Genital Alteration as Body Modification Across Genders

Both male and female bodies have been subjected, and subjected themselves, to body modification for the sake of religion, culture, social status, health, and aesthetics across geographic context and since prehistoric times (Lorentz 2002). Routine, aesthetic modifications, usually begun in childhood have made the cultures of their practice famous in anthropological circles and beyond (Finucane, Manning, and Toure 2008). Similarly, routine genital cutting of children characterizes the cultures that practice it (Shell-Duncan and Hernlund 2000), as well as their collective constructions of childhood, adulthood, and sexual maturity (Clark-Kazak 2009; Gilchrist 2004; Sanchez and Stuckey 2000) and of gender, masculinity, and femininity (Fausto-Sterling 2000; Gilchrist 2004; Hoffman 1996). The ways in which different societies, cultures, and nations frame, practice, and legislate routine genital alteration tells us much about the ways in which these disparate groups understand gender roles.

Talked about and reviled with a good deal of vehemence in Western countries, FGC is any type of modification performed on a female’s genitals for nonmedical reasons (Gallo et al. 2006; Koso-Thomas 1987; Shell-Duncan and Hernlund 2000; World Health Organization 2007). The World Health Organization classifies all types of female genital alteration into four ordinal types—with severity ranging widely from a scratching of the clitoral hood to a complete excision of all outer genitalia (World Health Organization 2007). In the societies in which it is practiced, female genital mutilation marks the cultural passage from childhood to womanhood. Many reasons for the custom are cited, including the control of sexuality, hygiene, aesthetics, and tradition (Earp 2014; Koso-Thomas 1987; Shweder 2000). As of 2016, it is estimated that over 130 million women and girls have undergone genital cutting (Toubia and Sharief 2003) and it is practiced in approximately 30 countries around the world, predominately in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.

That FGC is associated with “backward” countries—in not only the word’s historical economic sense (Niculescu 1955) but with all its present, postcolonial, and cultural imperialist baggage (Boyle 2005; Fanon [1961] 2004)—is evident in most literature describing it (Hosken 1979; Koso-Thomas 1987). In the Western cultural universalist view (Lane and Rubinstein 1996), the enduring practice of female genital mutilation is evidence of primitive forms of patriarchy run amok with men as the perpetrators of a system that steals young women’s sexuality (Catania et al. 2007; Walker and Parmar 1993), self-esteem (El-Defrawi et al. 2001), bodily integrity (Rahman and Toubia 2000), and overall health (Toubia 1994). In this literature, Western views and understandings of the body are represented as scientific, rational, civilized, and based on universally acknowledged expertise, while alternative body projects are portrayed as superstitious, uncivilized, and based on false, culturally specific beliefs (Ehrenreich and Barr 2005).

Complicating the view of female genital mutilation as clear patriarchal oppression outside of the West, however, women in societies that practice it are often among the practice’s biggest proponents (Briggs 2002; Earp 2014; Hellsten 2004; Thomas 1996). For various reasons, many insist not only that they are not victims but that the procedure is a valid expression of their cultural beliefs that they wish to conserve (Hellsten 2004). Many cite reasons that will be familiar to the Western reader in their decisions to alter the genitals of their daughters—a wish to be good parents for their female-bodied children to present normatively gendered bodies and to maximize their choices in marriage partners (Briggs 2002). Wade (2012) suggests, however, that this specific understanding of women maintaining the cultural practice of FGC oversimplifies and generalizes the complex and far-reaching cultural and social functions in the various societies in which FGC occurs. In keeping with an imperialistic necessity to evoke a narrative of “false consciousness,” female advocates who have undergone genital cutting are consistently silenced or left out of Western media claiming to invoke the realities of FGC (Wade 2012).

Unlike this depiction of FGC, MGC is practiced in areas of the world considered to be “developed.” In the United States, 81 percent of men are circumcised (Firger 2014). Although the practice is associated with religious and cultural minorities in Europe (Grillo 2008), in the United States, out-groups are characterized by their uncut genitals (Ehrenreich and Barr 2005; Leibowitz, Desmond, and Belin 2009). Historically, genital cutting functioned as a class marker, indicating that a given man had been born in a hospital, where genital cutting was routine, rather than at home (Carpenter 2010). Rather than continuing to be explicitly centered on the prevention of masturbation and the containment of male sexuality, U.S. physicians began to view male genital alteration through the perspective of hygiene and public health. Increasingly, male genital alteration is considered and spoken about as a preventative measure against a wide array of men’s health concerns, such as HIV (Larke 2010), herpes (Weiss et al. 2006), and penile cancer (Schoen et al. 2000), and even the potential infirmities of female partners (Castellsagué et al. 2002), rather than a reflection of any particular culture. The U.S. practice of circumcising male babies within days of birth as a matter of course, routine neonatal male genital alteration, has been justified in these terms.

Relatively little has been done to objectively assess MGC in comparison to FGC (Darby and Svoboda 2007; Earp 2014). Some have suggested that genital alteration may be considered as a single phenomenon across the spectrum of gender and the implications of surgical genital alteration can be considered reasonably similar between male and female genitals pending empirical proof (Bell 2005; Darby and Svoboda 2007; Earp 2014). Bell (2005) makes the point that both MGC and FGC have a broad spectrum of invasive severity, and Earp (2014) argues that the Western tendency is to compare the most invasive, unsafe forms of FGC with the most drastic consequences with the least severe and most supposedly medically beneficial forms of MGC. There are instances in which MGC, amputation, or performance of alteration in an unsterile environment, for example, can be more physically invasive than certain instances of FGC, such as labiaplasty or performance of the ritualistic nick (Androus 2004). The idea that all types of FGC are inherently more harmful than their male counterparts can thus be considered the product of Western social truism.

Existing scholarship has noted and considered problematic the degree to which these physiologically similar alterations are considered to be fundamentally dissimilar (Bell 2005; Darby 2003; Earp 2014; Hellsten 2004). Bell (2005) posits that international health organizations “seek to medicalize male genital cutting on one hand, oppose the medicalization of female genital cutting on the other, while simultaneously basing their opposition to female operations on grounds that could legitimately be used to condemn the male operations” (p. 131). Here, we consider the ways in which a common sense has been constructed around this state of affairs—specifically considering the discourse around MGC in the United States in contrast to that surrounding FGC.

A discussion of the relative health benefits and risks of MGC is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, we question the ways in which these benefits and risks are deemed relevant in the United States, particularly for male bodies. Given the overlap in physical invasiveness between male and female genital alteration, we investigate the regime of masculinity in which the male body is best understood as a potential vector of disease while its female counterpart is a complex and nuanced site of impending victimization.

Methodological Background

In order to understand the ways in which routine neonatal male genital alteration is constructed in the U.S. national discourse, we draw on Habermas’s (1989) idea of the public sphere. In his formulation, the public sphere is the set of political institutions where citizens discuss and deliberate about their common affairs, are free to be critical of the state, and construct a common sense through which to view the issues of the day (Habermas 1989). The existence of the public sphere is predicated on the existence of what Habermas (1989) refers to as the lifeworld—the shared common understandings, values, beliefs, desires, and taboos that develop through face-to-face contacts over time in various social groups from families to communities.

The media fulfills an essential function in the construction of the public sphere (Browne, Deckard, and Rodriguez 2016; Butsch 2007). Misra, Moller, and Karides (2003:483) posit that the media draws on a vocabulary of symbols, ideas, and accepted words already present in the public sphere, which serves to both reflect and amplify a common sense regarding a given issue. The use of this vocabulary and the construction of this common sense create frames for understanding an issue in the public and in the mass media, where “ideological and symbolic struggles about meanings visibly play-out” (Misra, Moller, and Karides 2003:483).

One of the most important sources for public information and deliberation regarding the body is the mass media (Nancarrow Clarke 1999; Seale 2003; Simon and Xenos 2000). Thriving literatures have explored the ways in which the portrayal of especially female (Sypeck, Gray, and Ahren 2004), but also male (Hargreaves and Tiggemann 2004), bodies create a collective understanding of appropriate and acceptable body shapes. Similarly, media affects the ways in which health and illness are perceived, with research showing that medicalization of bodily realities in the media influences the likelihood of understanding discomfort or lack of ability as disease (Lupton 2012).

In neoliberal and patriarchal regimes, the goals of surveillance and regulation are fulfilled by commissioning ensembles of expert knowledge to articulate norms of embodiment and lifestyle and to incite behaviors pursuant to these norms (Sanders 2016:4). The voices involved in promoting the ideals surrounding bodies, Donaldson’s (1993) “weavers of the fabric of hegemony,” effect the policing and management of gender roles and relations. Here, we explore the ways in which these voices are constructed and construct a discourse of normalization around male circumcision in the public sphere that exists in stark opposition to that employed around FGC.

Building on the ways in which media works to create meaning around our bodies, existing research demonstrates that it also constructs gender norms. Discourses about masculinity in the mainstream media are assumed to consist of meanings systems that normalize and legitimate commonsense ideas about gender groups in order to buttress hegemonic masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). In this article, we engage with the ways that media employ existing hegemonic gender norms to narrate, construct, and amplify the public discourse surrounding genital cutting as a gendered body project.

This Research

Building on the extensive existing literature articulating body projects and their role in normalizing gendered forms, we explore the ways in which current U.S. norms regarding circumcision are created and perpetuated. Specifically, we employ an analysis of the public discourse to investigate:

The disparate value positions displayed regarding genital cutting across gender lines,

The disparate frames employed to construct meaning around genital alteration,

The disparate use of personal narrative to assign agency, and

The disparate constructions of legitimate expertise regarding body forms across gender lines.

Given existing theoretical and empirical work, we posit that imperatives for male bodies will be governed by prerogatives of hegemonic masculinity, while those for female bodies will not.

Data

We analyze data using directed, summative content analysis procedures (Hsieh and Shannon 2005; Krippendorff 2012). That is, using existing theory regarding body projects, genital modification, and hegemonic masculinities, we developed codes to test our hypotheses in a directed manner and then aggregated the presence of codes in print media sources to present and understand the systems of meaning around genital alteration in the larger discourse (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). In order to investigate the ways in which gender and genital alteration intersect, we analyzed 172 articles randomly sampled from the 345 Lexis-Nexis articles that were archived under the key words “circumcision” or “female genital mutilation,” the two most common terms used for MGC and FGC, respectively. These articles ranged in date from 1985 to 2015 and were from periodicals throughout the United States. We included both opinion and news pieces, as both contribute to the creation of a public sphere in which media and their readers exist and construct meaning (Habermas 1989). We coded articles for the presence or absence of topics noted in Table 1.

Table 1.

Coding for Gendered Themes in Circumcision.

Value position of the article	Articles and pieces that present genital alteration as normative and a rational option are coded positive, while those operating from the presumption that alteration is inherently problematic are coded negative
Media frames	The reasoning for genital alteration being considered in the piece
Medical	Considerations of disease control, hygiene, and surgical risks
Culture	Issues of cultural propriety and continuity as well as backwardness
Religion	Circumcision as a religious practice
Oppression	Alteration is used primarily to oppress members of a given gender
Use of personal narrative	The presence of an extended personal narrative
Narrator role	Role of personal narrator, whether discussing own genital alteration or that of another person
Value position of narrator	Narrators who present genital alteration as normative and a rational option are coded positive, while those operating from the presumption that alteration is inherently problematic are coded negative
Use of quoted expert	The presence of quote(s) by a source presumed to have expertise
Expert role	The occupational role of an expert quoted
Expert ethnicity	Racial/ethnic group of the expert via biographical/photo information
Expert gender	Gender group of the quoted expert via biographical/photo information
Expert value position	Experts who present genital alteration as normative and a rational option are coded positive, while those operating from the presumption that alteration is inherently problematic are coded negative

Analysis

Media Value Position

Analysis confirmed that U.S. print media does reflect a value position regarding MGC. In the case of MGC, widely practiced and considered normative in the U.S. public discourse, positive positions abound. This value position is not shared in discussions of FGC. When discussing the modification of female genitalia, nonnormative in the United States, the tone is starkly different—with the expressed value position unambiguously, and unwaveringly, negative. Table 2 presents the results of this analysis in detail.

Table 2.

Value Positionality in Media Coverage of Genital Cutting.

Positionality	Male Genital Cutting		Female Genital Cutting
Positive	66	53 %	0	0 %
Negative	44	35 %	48	100 %
Neutral	14	11 %	0	0 %
Total	124	100 %	48	100 %

In newspapers and periodicals in the United States, the majority—53 percent—of coded articles that dealt with male circumcision assumed a vantage point from which the procedure was not inherently problematic. In addition to articles reflecting upon the possible benefits of male circumcision, typical sentiments in positive-perspective articles read per the below quoted from the New York Times:

“We’re not pushing everybody to circumcise their babies,” Dr. Douglas S. Diekema, a member of the academy’s task force on circumcision and an author of the new policy, said in an interview. “This is not really pro-circumcision. It falls in the middle. It’s pro-choice, for lack of a better word. Really, what we’re saying is, ‘This ought to be a choice that’s available to parents.’” (Rabin 2012)

Most powerful in articles coded “positive” was the overt presentation of an objective “either/or” option. By acting as proponents of choice, media makes normal the idea of circumcision as a viable decision that is dependent solely on the preference of the well-informed decision maker—understood to be the parent. This perspective is also exhibited in the below quote, which also exemplifies the ways in which the choice paradigm is not only embraced but used to reject the possibility of bans or criminalization.

[Differences in male circumcision rates are] a strange disparity in a country where most parents still circumcise their sons…. In the United States, far from debating whether circumcision should be allowed, a spate of new studies and recommendations…is warning against falling American circumcision rates. (The Forward 2012)

Only 11 percent of articles regarding male circumcision had no discernable value perspective. In stark contrast, the rate of positive portrayals of FGC—0 percent—makes clear the distinction between treatment of MGC and FGC and between the constructed and gendered nature of hegemonic body projects becomes clear.

Like most little girls in Somalia, Hafza Hassan was subjected to genital cutting. Years later, she sought asylum in the United States, arguing she had endured a form of persecution targeting Somali women. The federal government…said Hassan had nothing to fear because she couldn’t undergo the practice a second time. (Prather 2007)

In this quote, exemplary of the negative value position espoused in the treatment of female genital mutilation, the possibility that “genital cutting” would be a valid choice for parents of female-bodied children is outside of the constructed discourse entirely. Rather, the article creates and amplifies the prevalent U.S. common sense that cutting female genitals is inherently problematic and allows the reader to choose a position on whether the U.S. federal government should retroactively work to protect those victimized abroad.

Framing Circumcision

This analysis suggests that U.S. print media sources rationalize the phenomenon of MGC in a way that they do not rationalize FGC. Rationalization is largely accomplished through the use of medicalization but, in the United States, notions of religious freedom are also employed to distance debate from the public sphere. Importantly, cultural frames—insofar as they can be separated from explicitly faith-based paradigms—are little used in discussions of male circumcision, strengthening arguments that hegemonic masculinity must appear to be universally exalted. The overwhelmingly rationalized treatment of male circumcision is particularly notable when compared to the ways in which genital cutting is treated—largely through frameworks of cultural difference and oppression. The oppression framework is particularly prevalent in treatments of FGC and completely absent in conversations about similar treatments of the male body. Table 3 presents the breakdown of frames employed in the media articles analyzed.

Table 3.

Frames in Media Coverage of Genital Cutting.

Frame	Male Genital Cutting		Female Genital Cutting
Medical	81	65 %	3	6 %
Culture	13	10 %	17	35 %
Religion	30	24 %	0	0 %
Oppression	0	0 %	28	58 %
Total	124	100 %	48	100 %

Medicalization

Typical of newspaper pieces that employ the medicalization frame to present circumcision were articles containing these representative quotes:

The American Academy of Pediatrics has shifted its stance on infant male circumcision, announcing on Monday that new research, including studies in Africa suggesting that the procedure may protect heterosexual men against H.I.V., indicated that the health benefits outweighed the risks. (Rabin 2012)

‘It’s not a verdict from on high,’ said policy co-author Dr. Andrew Freedman. ‘There’s not a one-size-fits-all-answer.’ But from a medical standpoint, circumcision’s benefits in reducing risk of disease outweigh its small risks, said Freedman, a pediatric urologist in Los Angeles. (Tanner 2012)

In these articles, the decision, or “verdict,” is found through medical analysis. There is little or no discussion of the cultural, religious, or social implications of the genital modification. While about two-thirds of articles discussing male circumcision employed this frame, only 6 percent of those discussing female genital alteration considered it to be a primarily medical issue. In these cases, medical reasoning was used to criminalize the practice of FGC by doctors:

“Physicians don’t all know as much developmental genital anatomy as they should,” McLaughlin says. “Genitals of young children go through stages of development, and to force these changes prematurely is not wise.” (Smith 1995)

Notably, in those cases in which a medical frame is employed for FGC, there is little attention to research or empirical data—nor is there any reference to the absence of such data. Rather, as Earp (2014) and Bell (2005) posit, a complete dearth of statistical data on any possible health benefits of FGC or risks remaining when the procedure is performed by trained health personnel in hospital settings leaves prospective medical frames of FGC dependent on supposition.

Culture

Frames that consider male circumcision to be a cultural practice are relatively rare—about 10 percent of articles utilize them to construct meaning around the practice. Typical of these articles is the centering of U.S. exceptionality in the treatment of male circumcision. Indeed, these articles seem to ask: “Why do Americans stand alone in circumcising their male-bodied children?”

Circumcision is by far the most common surgery performed on children in this country, where 80 to 85 percent of newborn boys are circumcised. Nowhere else is the rate that high. Indeed, in most Western countries circumcision is infrequently practiced. (Brody 1985)

Importantly, in 9 of every 10 U.S. print media articles, this disparity is either not presented or alluded to solely as an example of a shortcoming of health systems outside of the United States.

The relative rarity of the cultural frame in articles considering male circumcision is particularly visible, given its relative popularity in articles concerning FGC. In just over one-third of these latter articles, circumcision is described as a cultural practice of a foreign, and seemingly inferior, space and people. These articles appear to follow a similar pattern: first a personal narrative of tortuous and coerced genital cutting, then an argument that this suffering was normal in the context of the country in which it occurred, followed by a claim for the U.S. government or institutions to save the victim or her female-bodied daughters from this barbaric treatment. The idea that the practice is not only harmful but perpetrated as part of an unrecognizable and remote cultural tradition is central here and stands in stark contrast to the ways in which male circumcision is considered largely apart from the cultural practices that distinguish it.

Religion

In the U.S. public discourse, religious frames are employed in approximately one in the four articles regarding male circumcision. Typical of these articles is the following representative opening quote: “Rooted in religious tradition among Jews and Muslims for centuries, circumcision is still considered a religious ritual among many adherents” (Moore 2008). This constructed common sense means that, while practices deemed culturally based may be stamped out with impunity, those anchored in religious faith must be respected (Tabor and Gallagher 1995). Given the discourse of choice often associated with male circumcision, the relative popularity of the religious frame is, perhaps, not surprising.

Oppression

The oppressions frame is deemed present when the article critically engages with either the possibility that, or the degree to which, genital cutting is employed to oppress gendered individuals and gender groups. This possibility is considered in none—0 percent—of the articles regarding male circumcision. In contrast, readers of the majority of FGC articles find themselves actively considering whether the practice of FGC is inextricably connected to the oppression of women as a demographic group.

The procedure, which many Africans call “female circumcision,” involves the removal of all or part of the external female genitals. The often crude and painful operations not only deprive victims of sexual feelings but may also injure them in ultimately life-threatening ways. [The] executive director of Unicef, welcomed the Senegalese Parliament’s decision [to criminalize female circumcision], ‘Senegal’s action is of great significance,’ she said, ‘because it reflects the resolve of African women to end a cruel and unacceptable practice which violates the rights of all girls to free, safe and healthy lives.’ (Crossette 1999)

In these articles, FGC is about a systematic and structural violence—not about individual actions by doctors, neighbors, or relatives and certainly not about parental choice—perpetuated against women collectively and functioning to deprive the group of the human rights accorded to global citizens.

Personal Narratives of Genital Alteration

Theories of hegemonic masculinity construct a masculinity that is largely without emotion—without drama. Noting the prevalence of personal narrative in U.S. news articles across articles discussing both MGC and FGC, we analyzed their prevalence and type. Table 4 presents the results of coding for personal narrative.

Table 4.

Employing Personal Narratives in Constructing Circumcision.

Narrative Present	Male Genital Cutting		Female Genital Cutting
No	90	75 %	33	75 %
Yes	30	25 %	11	25 %
Point of view (POV)
Self	7	23 %	9	82 %
Other	23	77 %	2	18 %
POV position
Positive	3	10 %	0	0 %
Negative	24	80 %	11	100 %
Neutral	3	10 %	0	0 %
Total articles	120		44

While the same percentage of articles in the United States included personal narratives in both MGC and FGC, there was a very real difference between the types of personal narratives included. In U.S. media outlets, 9 of the 11 articles with personal narratives were victim narratives—women telling the stories of their genital alterations and the circumstances surrounding them.

[V]isualise a pre-teen girl held down by adults. Her clitoris is tweaked so that the circumciser can hold it between their forefinger and thumb. Then they take a needle and pierce it, using enough force for it to go into the peak of the clitoris. As soon as it bleeds, the parents and others attending the ceremony cheer, the girl is comforted and celebrations follow. (Hirsi Ali 2010)

In these narratives, the girl is the victim and the genital alteration is an act that is intimately connected to her bodily integrity, future sexuality, and overall identity. It is violent and a violation of her body.

In contrast, personal narratives of male circumcision were overwhelmingly told by parents contemplating the decision of whether or not to circumcise their sons. Rather than graphic stories of violation, these are careful and sincere contemplations of a child’s genitals through the prism of rational parenting. Even those anecdotes that allude to children’s suffering are told through from the viewpoint of the parent’s experience and decision-making.

“Witnessing my children’s circumcision was extremely traumatic. I could not reconcile their trauma with my deep maternal knowing that this could not be right with what my (religious) tradition was telling me,” says Pollack, who spoke to her congregation about her views on circumcision…. Gross says she also found it hard to hear her babies cry. (Sutter 2007)

Although it may be tempting to consider these differences in light of the different ages at which genital modification is normally practiced—while pubescent girls remember being circumcised, newborn boys cannot recount it—there are an ample number of men who were circumcised in adulthood and could presumably speak to the experience (Fink, Carson, and DeVellis 2002). That this does not occur in the sample is important.

Genital Expertise

Irrespective of the gender treated in the article, experts and authority figures are quoted in articles at similar rates. FGC is discussed with a comparative diversity of viewpoints. In the United States, both men and women can speak legitimacy to the correct and appropriate presentation of female genitalia. Although experts on girls’ circumcisions skew white in U.S. news media, there are a substantial number of nonwhite experts quoted. Additionally, voices come from a variety of occupations—with medical professionals speaking rarely in comparison to lawyers, policy makers, and thought makers. It would seem that many types of people are seen as legitimate voices in the conversation about clitoral hoods, labia, vaginas, and the female body. These distributions, as well as those pertaining to expertise in male circumcision cases, are presented in Table 5.

Table 5.

Constructing Expertise in the Media Discourse.

Quotations	Male Genital Cutting		Female Genital Cutting
Number of articles with quoted sources	81	68 %	30	68 %
Quoted role
Lawyer	2	2 %	14	47 %
Doctors/nurses	45	56 %	1	3 %
Religious officials	10	12 %	1	3 %
Academics	11	14 %	3	10 %
Government officials	5	6 %	5	17 %
Activists	8	10 %	6	20 %
Quoted ethnicity
White	80	99 %	25	83 %
Hispanic	1	1 %	0	0 %
African	0	0 %	3	10 %
Asian	0	0 %	2	7 %
Arab	0	0 %	2	7 %
Quoted gender
Male	70	86 %	14	47 %
Female	11	14 %	18	60 %
Quoted source position
Positive	43	53 %	0	0 %
Negative	35	43 %	28	93 %
Neutral	3	4 %	2	7 %

In the articles coded, however, expertise is constructed very differently for the discussion of the cutting of male genitals. Male circumcision is the expertise of white men almost exclusively. In the United States, where the practice of routine neonatal male genital alteration is most regularly practiced, 99 percent of those consulted by the media as experts on male circumcision were white and 86 percent were men. Additionally, the issue of male circumcision was further medicalized by the choice of experts—health-care professionals were consulted in the majority of pieces in which there was a quoted expert. In keeping with extant literature, when it comes to questions of the desirable presentation of the male body, white, male doctors were constructed as expert. Although this may seem to follow, given the overwhelming use of the “medical” frame in understanding MGC, and the relatively large proportion of U.S. medical doctors who are white men, this explanation alone does not account for the blanket absence of diversity in voices. Perhaps the maintenance of the norms of hegemonic masculinity compels the use of the most legitimated expertise available. While the words of women or people of color might be impugned, and the normative body project consequently questioned, the words of white men are universally credible and thus better suited to justifying existing, gendered body norms.

Discussion and Conclusion

Insofar as public discourse is created and amplified in the media, existing gender roles and views of the body will be constructed and reconstructed on television and in the newspapers. The ways in which we understand our own bodies are mediated by this public discourse and reflective of the particular cultural and societal zeitgeist in which we find ourselves. The ways in which we create authority, expertise, and health are also, similarly, social constructions perpetuated in and by media.

This research suggests that media sources play an integral part in U.S. practices surrounding the genital modification of children. Despite similarities in physiological invasiveness between genital alteration accomplished on both male and female bodies, the two practices are discussed very differently in the U.S. popular press. Rather than being indicative of tangible differences in the two practices, these distinctions are symbolic of larger sets of cultural beliefs regarding masculinity. Here, we argue that treatment of circumcision in the public discourse is about the affecting of hegemonic masculinity on the male body generally and on male genitals specifically.

The reflection of these two narratives in the media creates the common sense around genital modification in the United States—one that is greatly reflective of the prevailing gender norms and currently popular gendered body projects. Insofar as the media reflects and amplifies the public sphere, this research suggests that male circumcision is prevalent in the United States because it is rationalized through medical frames, considered within the rubric of strong parenting broadly and fathering specifically, and its meaning understood through white, male doctors who hold legitimate authority over acceptable embodiments of the male form.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note

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