"This might p'ssibly be more comprehensible if it were a desperate (albeit insane) attempt at at protecting girls from rape." In other words, "Hey, it might be understandable if they were hurting her for her own good". Jesus Christ, committing an act of violence against a woman 'for her own good" is pretty much the rapist credo, isn't it? "She wanted it, I was only obliging her."

Abusing someone to protect against ANYthing is wrong. And quoting 'cultlural taboos' as the reason puts a misguided PC spin on the situation that is unacceptable. Breast pounding/ironing not a 'ritual' that is comprehensible from any angle - it's violence born of ignorance. Period.

She said comprehensible, not acceptable. I don't think she was trying to imply that something like this is ever okay.

There seems to be a revulsion against the idea of trying to understand actions that we find abhorrent; this is only one example. Here's another: "Who cares why terrorists fly planes into buildings? Let's just go bomb the hell out of somebody!"

"Breast ironing" is a grotesque practice, and should not be condoned under any circumstances. So is terrorism. So, for that matter, is rape. So are many of the other things that people do for specific cultural reasons, and while we should never be afraid to speak out against evil acts regardless of the motive, we should also recognize that understanding the source of the evil gives us our best shot at preventing it.

Comprehensible is what I retyped, so obviously I know what she wrote.

And I repeat - it's not 'comprehensible' that someone could explain or defend violence (mothers beating and maiming girls' breasts) committed in the name of preventing a different type of violence (men being attracted to said breasts and raping the girls).

Doing lesser damage to prevent greater damage? How is that not comprehensible? Beaten breasts vs. AIDS? Nobody said that this isn't horrible. Of course it's horrible! But let's get mad at the right people here. The culture seems to be saying that when men are enticed by girls, it's the girls' fault. The girls are responsible for the men's actions. These mothers need to fight against that notion, not play into it.

This practice is totally incomprehensible. I read things like this, and I start thinking like Rudyard Kipling. Am I the only one?

Is it with the breasts the girls are developing?

Or is it with the acceptance of rape as the normal response to the sight of said breasts.

Beating and ironing girls budding breasts should be just as abhorrant a responce to rape as castrating boys to prevent them from growing up to be rapists.

This going to come across as ..very...cold.

But what a great opportunity - if you could secure a

'population'- to finally see if there is a genuine connexion between BrCa & trauma.

There is a long speculative history.

It would take long term followup.

That... implies recolonizing Africa in some guise, or another.

Just thinkin'.

This is an argument for effective birth control. On so many levels.

From the BBC article: "Prof Anderson Doh, a cancer surgeon and director of the state-owned Gynaecological Hospital in Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, says the practice is dangerous."

D'oh!

Much like with FGM, the people wielding the rusty razor blade or the heated rocks were once victims of them. It's sadistic, violent repression on cruise control -- it's self-perpetuating, self-continuing. There was a case in Kenya(?) recently of a girl who died after mutilating her own genitals because of ridicule and bullying by her female peer group.

Of course, biting male babies' foreskins off at birth, well, that's different. *GOD* told us to do that.

...that suggested that part of the mothers' motivation was to allow the girls to continue going to school, rather than being forced into marriage (sometimes via rape) in their preteen years. This is not in any way to condone the practice, but the practice is not the root of the problem--patriarchy, in one of its more brutal forms, is.

Well, I guess that the theft, lynchings and rapes that the white race has perpetrated against the other races of the world don't count.

Why do I bother? Ignorant and arrogant...

Rapes, Lunchings and Murders are hardly limited to white folk, no name, (and are of course disgusting) but FGM, ironed breasts (not to mention chiseled teeth, sewn vaginas, elongated necks, stretched lips and various other body mutilation) is beyond disgusting: it's savage... Remember, in SA, a certain portion of the population believes that raping children cures AIDS (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/11/wrape11.xml&sSheet=/news/2001/11/11/ixhome.html)

PS - I know that American kids mutilate their bodies as well - and often in bizarre manners, but, come on!

Just wow, sadly.

It is amazing what has felt safe to crawl out from the cracks in the floor these last few years.

let's talk about savage...

http://www.liu.edu/cwis/CWP/library/african/2000/lynching.htm

and there's also the Holocaust, the wide-scale killing of the Native American, not to mention other indigenous people worldwide; the Apartheid system; and the stealing of land and resources the list goes on...

Oh, but I get it... you guys are just more EFFICIENT at being savages.

Your saying that the erors of the past condone breast binding?

no...

but it is not license for lazy, uninformed, ignorant racist rantings either.

if that's what you want to do, I suggest you take it over to some "White Power" website, where you can post this crap all day long.

And why let the facts stand in the way of your opinion anyway... right?

No one denies western imperialism and violence (though Africans and Asians are long practiced in war and rape and death) - it's a fucking cottage industry on college campuses, but if you can't see the difference between pillage in war and holding down your daughter and sewing her vagina closed or ironing her breasts, you're either stupid or crazy or both... and yes, the Holocaust was a bad thing...