Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T00:06:09.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Religion, family structure, and the perpetuation of female genital cutting in Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2020

Lisa Blaydes  and
Melina R. Platas
Lisa Blaydes
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
Melina R. Platas*
Affiliation:
Division of Social Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: mplatas@nyu.edu
Get access

Abstract

How are harmful social practices brought to an end? Female genital cutting (FGC) is extremely common among ever-married women in Egypt, but the practice has declined among younger women and girls. While much of the recent literature on abatement of FGC has focused on individual-level determinants of a mother's choice to circumcise her daughters, we focus on meso-level factors, particularly norm change within religious communities and attitude formation within families. We find differential FGC trends across Muslim and Coptic Christian communities as well as an effect of the gender of a woman's first-born child—an exogenous variable in Egypt where pre-natal sex selection is rare—on attitudes toward FGC. The effect of the first-born gender varies by religion and birth cohort, however, suggesting ways in which meso-level factors interact to impact women's attitudes and associated FGC outcomes.

Keywords

Family structuregenital cuttingreligion
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 86 , Special Issue 3: The Economics of Religion , September 2020 , pp. 305 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdel-Tawab, Nahla and Hegazi, Sahar (2000) Critical Analysis of Interventions against FGC in Egypt. FRONTIERS Final Report. Washington, DC: Population Council.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abu-Sahlieh, Sami Al-Deeb (1994) To mutilate in the name of Jehovah or Allah: legitimization of male and female circumcision. Med Law 13(7–8), 575–622.Google ScholarPubMed
Abu-Sahlieh, Sami Al-Deeb (2006) Male and female circumcision: the myth of the difference. In Abusharaf, Rogaia Justafa (ed.), Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Ajami, Fouad (1981) The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Armanios, Febe (2002) The ‘virtuous woman:’ images of gender in modern coptic society. Middle Eastern Studies 38(1), 110–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bibars, Iman (2001) Victims and Heroines: Women, Welfare and the Egyptian State. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Bicchieri, Cristina (2016) Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Blaydes, Lisa and Gillum, Rachel (2013) Religiosity-of-Interviewer effects: assessing the impact of veiled enumerators on survey response in Egypt. Politics and Religion 6(3), 459–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaydes, Lisa and Linzer, Drew (2008) The political economy of women's support for fundamentalist Islam. World Politics 60(4), 576–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brody, Charles J. and Steelman, Lala Carr (1985) Sibling structure and parental Sex-typing of children's household tasks. Journal of Marriage and Family 47(2), 265–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, Jean-Paul (2013) Veiling. Quarterly Journal of Economics 128(1), 337–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cloward, Karisa (2014) False commitments: local misrepresentation and the international norms against female genital mutilation and early marriage. International Organization 68(3), 495–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cloward, Karisa (2015) Elites, exit options, and social barriers to norm change: the Complex case of female genital mutilation. Studies in Comparative International Development 50(3), 378–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cloward, Karisa (2016) When Norms Collide: Local Responses to Activism Against Female Genital Mutilation and Early Marriage. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conrad, Browyn Kara (2006) Neo-institutionalism, social movements and the cultural reproduction of a mentalité: promise keepers reconstruct the Madonna/Whore complex. Sociological Quarterly 47(2), 305–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downey, Douglas, Braboy Jackson, Pamela and Powell, Brian (1994) Sons versus daughters: sex composition of children and maternal views on socialization. Sociological Quarterly 35(1), 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eickelman, Dale and Piscatori, James (1996) Muslim Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Kholy, Heba (2002) Defiance and Compliance: Negotiating Gender in Low-Income Cairo. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Fearon, James and Hoeffler, Anke (2014) Benefits and Costs of the Conflict and Violence Targets for the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Copenhagen Concensus Agenda Working paper.Google Scholar
Finnemore, Martha and Sikkink, Kathryn (1998) International norm dynamics and political change. International Organization 52(4), 887–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glynn, Adam and Sen, Maya (2015) Identifying judicial empathy: does having daughters cause judges to rule for women's issues? American Journal of Politics Science 59(1), 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haddon, Hazel (2012) Gender and Identity in Contemporary Coptic Society. Master of Arts Thesis, American University in Cairo.Google Scholar
Hadi, Amal Abdel (2006) A community of women empowered: the story of Deir El Barsha. In Abusharaf, Rogaia Justafa (ed.), Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 104–124.Google Scholar
Harris, Kathleen M. and Philip Morgan, S. (1991) Fathers, Sons, and daughters: differential paternal involvement in parenting. Journal of Marriage and Family 53(3), 531–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassanina, Ibrahim and Shaaban, Omar (2013) Impact of the complete Ban on female genital cutting on the attitude of educated women from upper Egypt toward the practice. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics 120(3), 275–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayford, Sarah and Trinitapoli, Jenny (2011) Religious differences in female genital cutting: a case study from Burkina Faso. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(2), 252–271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iannaccone, Laurence (1992) Religious markets and the economics of religion. Social Compass 39(1), 123–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald and Norris, Pippa (2003) Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeppson, Karolina (2003) Gender, Religion and Society: A Study of Women and Convent Life in Coptic Orthodox Egypt. Master of Arts Thesis, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, Deniz (1988) Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender and Society 2(3), 274–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzev, Aphra R., Warner, Rebecca L. and Acock, Alan C. (1994) Girls or boys? Relationship of child gender to marital instability. Journal of Marriage and the Family 56, 89–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kedar, Mordechai (1994) Islam and ‘female circumcision:’ The dispute over FGM in the Egyptian press. Medicine and Law 21, 403–418.Google Scholar
Kepel, Gilles (1993) Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and the Pharaoh. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lapidus, Ira (1997) Islamic revival and modernity: the contemporary movements and the historical paradigms. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 40(4), 444–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, Gerry (1996) Ending footbinding and infibulation: a convention account. American Sociological Review 61(6), 999–1017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, Gerry and LeJeune, John (2009) Social Dynamics of Abandonment of Harmful Practices: A New Look at the Theory. UNICEF, Special Series on Social Norms and Harmful Practices.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba (2005) The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Malstrom, Maria (2016) The Politics of Female Circumcision in Egypt: Gender, Sexuality and the Construction of Identity. London: I.B. Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mernissi, Fatima (1987) The Veil and the Male Elite. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Moallem, Minoo (2005) Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy in Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Modrek, Sepideh and Liu, Jenny (2013) Exploration of pathways related to the decline in female circumcision in Egypt. BMC Public Health 13, 921.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patel, David (2012) Concealing to reveal: the changing informational role of Islamic dress. Rationality and Society 24(3), 295–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Francis (2009) Crisis of authority: crisis of Islam? Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 19(3), 339–354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, Jared (2017) Rulers, Religion, and Riches Why the West Got Rich & the Middle East Did Not. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafer, Emily Fitzgibbons and Malhotra, Neil (2011) The effect of a child's Sex on support for traditional gender roles. Social Forces 90(1), 209–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, Denis (1994) Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt: Islamic Development, Private Initiative and State Control. Gainsville: University of Florida Press.Google Scholar
Suzuki, C. and Meekers, D. (2008) Determinants of support for female genital cutting among ever-married women in Egypt. Global Public Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice. 3(4), 383–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terman, Rochelle (2010) Piety of public participation: the revolutionary Muslim woman in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Politics, Religion, and Ideology 11(3), 289–310.Google Scholar
Van Doorn-Harder, Pieternella (1995) Contemporary Coptic Nuns. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Von der Osten-Sacken, Thomas and Uwer, Thomas (2007) Is female genital mutilation an Islamic problem? Middle East Quarterly 14(1), 29–36.Google Scholar
Warner, Rebecca (1991) Does the Sex of your children matter? Support for feminism among women and Men in the United States and Canada. Journal of Marriage and Family 53(4), 1051–1056.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, Rebecca and Steel, Brent (1999) Child rearing as a mechanism for social change: the relationship of child gender to parents’ commitment to gender equity. Gender and Society 13(4), 503–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Washington, Ebonya (2008) Female socialization: how daughters affect their legislator fathers’ voting on women's issues. American Economic Review 98(1), 311–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, Bronwyn (2016) Women as cultural markers/bearers. Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 1–5.Google Scholar
Yeganeh, Nahid (1993) Women, nationalism and Islam in contemporary political discourse in Iran. Feminist Review 44, 3–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yildirm, A. Kadir (2019) The New Guardians of Religion: Islam and Authority in the Middle East.” Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University.Google Scholar
Yount, Kathryn (2002) Like mother, like daughter? Female genital cutting in Minia, Egypt. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 43(3), 336–358.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yount, Kathryn (2004) Symbolic gender politics, religious group identity, and the decline in female genital cutting in Minya, Egypt. Social Forces 82(3), 1063–1090.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yount, Kathryn (2005) Resources, family organization, and domestic violence against married women in Minya, Egypt. Journal of Marriage and Family 67(3), 579–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira (1993) Gender and nation. Ethnic and Racial Studies 16(4), 621–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zeghal, Malika (1999) Religion and politics in Egypt: the Ulema of Al-Azhar, radical Islam and the state (1952–94). International Journal of Middle East Studies 31(3), 371–399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar