So Is It All Just About Sex? Religion and Recognising Harmful Practices in the Need to Control Female Sexuality

Abstract

The term “harmful traditional practices” first emerged in the 1950s, referring to practices that are harmful, but undergirded by values and beliefs held by a community, often for generations. The twenty-first century saw the term replaced with “harmful cultural practices”, but it nevertheless continues to be used almost exclusively in relation to harmful practices happening within non-Western contexts and communities. This chapter aims to counter this tendency to frame harmful practices as non-Western phenomena, by identifying the religious need to control female sexuality as a key driver in a number of harmful practices. Recognising this driver facilitates recognition of harmful practices within Western contexts and communities. By drawing on the parallels between child marriage in non-Western settings and the abstinence movement in the United States, the chapter unpacks how fear of female sexuality and the need to control it underlies both practices. Both practices continue despite extensive evidence of the harm it does to girls and women, and both practices are often state-sanctioned. Recognising religious fears of female sexuality, accompanied by the need to control female sexuality, allows us to develop a more nuanced lens for studying harmful practices. This lens is much-needed for challenging the harmful power dynamics between Western and non-Western funder and practitioners, for assisting in the identification of practices that are harmful to women and girls, but also for the development of more appropriate, effective intervention strategies.