Framing Male Circumcision as a Human Rights Issue? Contributions to the Debate Over the Universality of Human Rights

Abstract

The international community has not framed male circumcision as a violation of human rights in the same way that it has condemned female genital mutilation. Although this article acknowledges sharp differences between the most extreme forms of female genital mutilation and male circumcision as it is most widely practiced, this article concludes that the most common forms of male and female circumcision are not sufficiently divergent practices to warrant a differential response from the international community and that there are more similarities between the two practices than is typically acknowledged. The article seeks to illuminate cultural and ideological tensions that are at stake in any effort to develop and apply universal norms in a world of difference. The comparison of global responses to male and female circumcision in this article sheds light on the cultural obstacles to global consensus on human rights as universal principles and underscores the difficulty of adopting “neutral” universalist rights claims devoid of cultural and ideological content.