Gender, Medicine, and the Creation of a Modern Nation: Calls to End Female Genital Cutting in Egypt, 1940 to 1960

Abstract

Abstract While considerable research exists on female genital cutting (FGC) in Egypt, debates about its legitimacy prior to the 1970s have barely received any scholarly attention. However, the analysis of Egyptian magazines and newspapers indicates that the 1940s and 1950s witnessed a broad debate over FGC. Drawing on this evidence, the article argues that calls to end female circumcision did not primarily assert the physical and sexual rights of women and girls. Rather, the debate was dominated by a male-centered perspective that conceptualized FGC as a backward practice whose eradication was deemed necessary to create a healthy and progressive nation, while both female sexual satisfaction and the agency of female traditional health practitioners were marginalized. The history of combatting FGC between 1940 and 1960 thus needs to be understood as part of broader debates about public health and social reform that centered on the female and rural population to civilize and modernize the nation.