Cameroon: Breast ironing
http://www.worldpulse.com/magazine/articles/cameroon-mama-hates-my-sprouting-breasts
According to statistics from the United Nations Population Fund, one out of every four girls in Cameroon is a victim of breast ironing. That’s 3.8 million girls. The practice is most prevalent in the Christian and animist south of the country, where in some regions, half of the female population is subject to breast ironing. The damaging effects of this form of body mutilation by far outweigh any reasoning behind the practice. Fertilized by the culture of silence, breast ironing has made it right up to this age of scientific advancement. Many women have seen the benefits of educating their girl children. They are ready to do anything to prevent their daughters from teenage pregnancy and early marriage that would bring an end to their daughters’ education. This mutilation has proven to be futile when it comes to deterring teenage sexual activity and many of the girls still end up disfigured with teenage pregnancies.
Breast ironing can be a source of excruciating pain and violates a young girl’s physical integrity. A 25-year-old victim says she feels embarrassed each time she is naked amongst her peers because her breast tissues are worn out like those of an old woman. “The thing is very much alive everywhere, yet no one talks about it because it is done behind closed doors and kept as a secret between mothers and daughters. Not even the fathers are usually aware of these acts,” she says.
Many thanks to Ophelia Benson over at Butterflies and Wheels for alerting me to this issue, which I had not known about before. Something else to add to the long list of practices designed to keep women in their place and ensure that their proprietary value (let’s tell it like it is, huh?) is not lessened by allowing them to commit such heinous crimes as looking attractive, talking to men, having relationships or getting raped (by men they are not married to).
Even in the supposedly enlightened West, women are still admonished not to ‘dress like sluts’ to avoid the attacks of their lust-filled male peers; and this is especially ironic in light of the commercially based pressure on women to look appealing and be accessible. God help us if we don’t banish our spots, smooth our wrinkles, conceal our blemishes, wear eyelash enhancer and waterproof make-up, and above all GET THIN, because obviously we’ll just be repulsive otherwise.
So on the one hand, we’re told, men can’t help their overwhelming compulsion to sleep with us, and on the other, they won’t touch us with the proverbial barge-pole unless we are drop-dead gorgeous. And every way we turn, women lose, and in the worst cases, they lose their lives. It’s wholly, cruelly, horribly unjust.
Weekly update #4, and accompanying rant
Cameroon: Breast ironing
http://www.worldpulse.com/magazine/articles/cameroon-mama-hates-my-sprouting-breasts
Many thanks to Ophelia Benson over at Butterflies and Wheels for alerting me to this issue, which I had not known about before. Something else to add to the long list of practices designed to keep women in their place and ensure that their proprietary value (let’s tell it like it is, huh?) is not lessened by allowing them to commit such heinous crimes as looking attractive, talking to men, having relationships or getting raped (by men they are not married to).
Even in the supposedly enlightened West, women are still admonished not to ‘dress like sluts’ to avoid the attacks of their lust-filled male peers; and this is especially ironic in light of the commercially based pressure on women to look appealing and be accessible. God help us if we don’t banish our spots, smooth our wrinkles, conceal our blemishes, wear eyelash enhancer and waterproof make-up, and above all GET THIN, because obviously we’ll just be repulsive otherwise.
So on the one hand, we’re told, men can’t help their overwhelming compulsion to sleep with us, and on the other, they won’t touch us with the proverbial barge-pole unless we are drop-dead gorgeous. And every way we turn, women lose, and in the worst cases, they lose their lives. It’s wholly, cruelly, horribly unjust.