Paper short abstract:

The female circumcision struggle brought together three groups, all arguably patriarchal - the local nationalist movement, the colonial state, and Christian missionaries - in a head-on confrontation mainly for political legitimacy, in which women and their sexuality became the battleground.

Paper long abstract:

MALE CONCORDANCE AND BODY POLITICS: A RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE 1929-32 FEMALE CIRCUMCISION CONTROVERSY IN KENYA

Jane Wambui, University of Nairobi, Kenya

This paper analyses the extent to which female circumcision in Kenya, an act of violence against women, was transformed into a site of gendered racialized struggle. The female circumcision struggle brought together three groups, all arguably patriarchal - the local nationalist movement, the colonial state, and Christian missionaries - in a head-on confrontation mainly for political legitimacy, in which women and their sexuality became the battleground. The resultant compromise on the part of the men involved demonstrates a form of concordance between separate male groups that had different reasons for accommodating female circumcision. As is often the case, the debate concerning female circumcision was less about the women concerned but more about the appropriation of women as political symbols. In other words, the controversy demonstrates the use of women as ammunition in a polemic of central concern to their lives, but where the issue at stake is not the women's own interests but, rather, the consolidation of the powers of others to define those interests. The paper shows how the politicization of issues concerning women often leads to the disappearance of women as subjects, leaving control over decisions regarding women's bodies and sexuality in men's hands. In this process, women's and gender issues are generally trumped by patriarchal, nationalist and/or capitalist concerns.