Perhaps a headline featuring 'excised clitoris' <br />was considered improper by the editors of Life <br />so they ran this one instead: <br />'A girl in Cairo is circumcised.' <br /> <br />The surgeon looks a little bored, <br />as you might be with a fretful child <br />who's fallen down and skinned her knee: <br />tsk, tsk, that doesn't really hurt now. <br /> <br />The girl is desperate to escape, <br />falling forward in the reader's arms, <br />simultaneously realizing this horror: <br />escape is not an option. <br /> <br />In an economy rather like the single stroke <br />that removed her clitoris and labia, <br />the photographer has captured both feelings <br />in this one snapshot. <br /> <br />After centuries of trying <br />to rearrange destiny, no one seems to get it. <br />The knives don't stop it. <br />The girls are still born with clits. <br /> <br /> <br />(Life magazine, October 1991, 'The Journey of Our Lives')<br /><br />Lynn Cohen<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/80-million-african-women-are-circumcised/
