You're my only hope of turning this paper in without some gaping logical flaw I may have missed!

This is my paper. The question taken directly from the assignment sheet: "Should outsiders be telling African women what initiation practices are acceptable?" Please tell me if this adequately answers the question without being too obviously biased toward "this is a disgusting and horrifying thing to do to a woman's body".

It's really short, only 603 words. She asked for 2-3 pages, I made it two full ones and I can't elaborate more without pulling in specific examples which she told us we wouldn't have to do, so... would you be content to receive this paper in an Ethics class?


One of the ideals the Western world holds highest is that of liberty. In the Declaration of Independence, liberty is considered so important that it comes second only to life itself. Liberty is one of the first claims made in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For better or for worse, Western ideals have been spread across the globe, in places adopted and in other places forced into being.

Part of the idea of liberty is the sanctity of one’s own body. We expect to be free from others’ imposition of harm, and there are laws in place to punish those who violate others. However, an adult can make many choices about his or her own body that other people may not choose, or of which they may openly disapprove. I personally have tattoos. I have many friends with piercings, not only in their ears. I know people who have undergone body modification surgery for many reasons, each of them valid in their own way.

What an adult may knowingly choose for herself, a child may not. There are laws in place to keep young people from modifying their bodies, sometimes depending upon parental consent, sometimes restricted entirely until the age of consent is reached. In New York state, no one under the age of 18 may be tattooed, even if the parent consents. Piercings require adult permission. Sometimes an adult may make a decision about modifying the body of their child before the child is old enough to express an opinion about it-- no one asks baby boys if they want to be circumcised, and I have seen many infant girls with their ears pierced.

Thankfully, as a coming of age ceremony, no one is ritually mutilating the genitals of baby girls. By the time a girl becomes a woman, whatever age that is considered, she is usually at least thirteen and is able to make decisions about what she does and does not eventually want to do to her own body. If an adult woman chooses to undergo a coming of age ceremony that involves genital mutilation, one may assume that she has weighed the risks and benefits of the procedure and has come to the choice rationally. Although I personally find the practice upsetting to the point of physical illness, I have no right to impose my belief against this practice on another human being.

Where the question “should this be allowed?” lies is in the age and consent of the participant. I do not think that a teenage girl has the agency to make a decision about whether she wants to undergo this procedure. Teenagers don’t always have the best judgment; this is why we restrict them from types of body modification considerably less drastic than genital mutilation. Also, at that age, she would be subject to pressure from her family and elders, who might push her into making a decision she would regret.

I believe that, in a case of genital mutilation being imposed on a coerced young woman, outsiders certainly would have the right to impose their will: the will to keep a person without agency from being harmed by those with power over her. The woman’s liberty to keep her body as it is trumps the culture’s belief in the procedure. However, if a woman freely and in full knowledge of what the outcome will be decides that this initiation ritual is one she wants to undergo, her liberty to do what she will with her body trumps the Western belief that the procedure is wrong in any case or context.


Aaaaand I officially did NOT make it through this without crying about it. I went down to have my mom read it through and she's like "you know why this is done and all the problems it causes" and I was like "yes, I fucking know, that's why I have no faith in myself arguing this position, logically I know it's sensible but deep down inside I don't want this to happen to any girl ever again, ever." And then I started crying. So I guess the paper wins this one. Frustrated to tears even with Xanax calming me down. Emotional stability? What's that?