Making Arkansas Safe For Women
I really cannot think of what to say.
Rep. Brandt Smith, R-Jonesboro, filed HB 1762, which would make female genital mutilation a Class felony.
“It’s happening in the United States — not neccessarliy yet in Arkansas, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t in the future,” said Smith, who said Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, brought the idea to him because she had her hands full with other bills.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that at least 150,000 to 200,000 girls in the U.S. are at risk of undergoing the procedure, which is common in much of Africa.
Smith said that if the practice does surface in Arkansas, “we’d like to be ready with some policy already to help our judges know what we would expect in a ruling.”
Ya know, up until I read this, I didn’t know that females were allowed to have genitals in Arkansas.
Seriously, does Arkansas have laws against foot binding? You never know when that’s gonna sneak up and get ya. How about laws against burning witches? Got some? Ya got laws against holding entire court sessions in Klingon? You never know.
I think Brandt just wanted to say “female genital” a bunch of times. He lists his religion as “Southern Baptist” so that’s probably a phrase he doesn’t get to say out loud very much.
Well, it’s that or Mary was just jacking with him.
I wonder where he stands on male genital mutilation.
1Next thing ya know, they’ll be selling chastity belts at Walmart!!
2Marcia – You mean they don’t?
3Actually, JJ, I am such a mouth-foaming radical on this subject that I would like to see a law that allows women whose parents performed or countenanced this awful practice to sue said parents for all their money and send them to jail.
I know that’s not going to happen and such women tend not to blame their parents, much.
Still, as an alternative, I would like a federal law that makes OB/GYNs required to report such women to the authorities, so that prosecutors can investigate who and when this was done to them.
Smith is a rube, but his heart is in the right place on this one.
4Juanita Jean I LOVE your website !!!! I am surprised that Arkansas cared about this issue. Many women who come to the U.S. from countries where female genital mutilation is practiced are begging for help to save them from this horror. They are also desperate for legal recourse to the forced marriages of young girls.
5A few years ago, Helen Giddings (D) got a FGM bill passed in Texas that is better than the federal law. It happens here, in every state.
6I totally agree that female genital mutilation is an evil thing, but I also believe it is a complicated matter. I certainly didn’t mean to make this about a serious discussion of the legality of FGM – and there are current federal laws against it – but I thought that his contention that it might come to Arkansas was weird. All kinds of things might happen.
7I know about FGM and think it is abominable but didn’t realize it had such a presence in the USA. I wonder if his bill had any riders? Oh, I’ll just give him a star and be glad he did a good thing.
8I’m just cynical enough to believe he supports this bill because it is said this practice is common in Africa. As a recovered Southern Baptist I say he is guilty until proven innocent.
9I know it sounds totally over the edge, but there have been TV specials about this produced by very reputable sources. Even the United Nations has data on FGM. Frankly, though, I always thought this sort of thing was already covered by laws concerning assault and battery and so forth. My only little, little bit of a problem is that with a soupçon of approval this guy just might try to make a law about something else involving females and sex and thus conflate himself with God. I’ve seen it happen. Fingers crossed. Will now stop typing . . .
10Since FGM is a religious rite in some countries,it is asinine for wingnuts to formulate a law to violate one’s sincerely held religious beliefs considering.
11Unless,of course,the only sincerely held religious beliefs worth gubmint protection belong to wingnuts.
RA is on the right track: SUBTEXT, people! Although FGM spans many religions (including Christianity!) and is not mentioned in the Qur’an, the cultural mores underlying the practice – subjection of women, chastity, honor – are for the most part in these countries overlayed with an approving patina of Islam.
I am sure that, in the minds of most Arkansas legislators, FGM and Islam are one and the same and that this bill is more anti-Sharia than pro-woman.
12He’s a Repuglican Baptist from Arkansas. His concern for women is automatically suspect. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it, or if he’s just trying to get some points with women voters.
13Frankly, I think the only reason a GOPer would be on this is that it tends to be associated with MOOOSLIMS! It’s kind of a shock, even so. FGM is the kind of regressive, anti-woman, anti-sex thing that you would expect your garden variety regressive fundamentalists to be out picketing FOR.
14Laws against FGM are good, even if an Arkansas Republican proposes them. Anybody who carves off a little girl’s ladyparts in the name of “culture” or “keeping her pure” has a &%$#ing evil element in their culture and deserves jail time. More people are resisting and refusing to mutilate their girls, and the more support they get the better.
15With nutjobs attitudes about sex in general and pleasurable sex in particular,I’m rilly surprised they don’t force FGM on their wimmenfolks so they don’t enjoy one of life’s little pleasures. Cooking and cleaning and having babies should bring honor and pleasure enough without actually having any pleasure.
Besides wasn’t it Erica Jong’s book back in the 70s that gave Muslims excuses to hijack and crash planes because they were scared of flying? Sheesh,someone has to do the thinking for nutjobs.
16More than 95% of all girls in Somalia are mutilated. These are about 80,000 Somalis in the US. I don’t care what this guy’s motives were, I’m just glad he did the right thing.
17Hey don’t go to hard on Brandt, he’s got the education to back him up on whatever he’s talking about! He’s a doctor, but we don’t know what type of doctor!
“Rep. Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from National Louis University, Master of Arts degree from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, and PhD Capella University”
http://www.arkansashouse.org/member/381/Brandt-Smith
18There was a science fiction story a few years by Megan Lindholm aka Robin Hobb “Cut”. It’s set in a country where girls have the right to make all medical decisions for themselves,
Adults have full authority over those under 16.
A very bright 16 year old has just told her grandmother e(mother?) that she has decided to have the genital mutilation. It will be a bonding experience with her friends and decrease her sexual appetite. She’s also (I think, working on several years ago memory) planning to take her infant daughter for the same.
The grandmother has no authority to tell her no on either and can’t talk her out of it. The ending is very ambiguous and left me with ongoing shudders for a long time. Worth the read if you can find it. I just checked and it is in Robin hobb’s book- The Inheritance and Other Stories. I just asked my library for it and should get it Saturday–maybe it won’t be so haunting after i read it again.
Sorry about the ramble-I hadn’t thought about that story for years…
19Obviously Arkansas is still safe for idiots like Rep. Brandt Smith.
20While I rarely agree with an “R” on anything, I do believe I would agree with this move. All too often a thing that is not considered as “wrong” legally is said to be “right” to do because there is no law against it happening.
So, yeah, make a law against “FGM”, but what if a woman decides that is what she wants to do? So, “informed consent” is OK? Doesn’t that make an abortion procedure totally OK?
21FGM is NOT a religious rite but a brutal, outdated, cultural tradition. You know even a broken analog clock is right twice a day. So good for the republican. You see I can compliment a republican without throwing up. Now where is my vodka? Somehow I still got a bad taste in my mouth.
22