What comes to mind when you think of science? Do you think of your fifth grade science project, your organic chemistry class, doctors in a lab conducting experiments or hospitals? Whatever comes to mind, it is safe to say that science is all around us. But what about using science as an authorized discourse for human rights? While using science to legitimize a human rights claim is substantial and can further strengthen one’s argument, there are some oversights that even science can fail to consider.
This past week we read a few pieces that used science to frame female genital cutting through a human rights perspective. However, one article we read was not about female cutting, but about how society views science. In Bruno Latour’s Opening Pandora’s Black Box, he argues that when it comes to science, there is a black box that scientists start with. In this black box is a complex and concrete entente that is taken for what it is. Based upon what is in that black box, experiments, arguments, etc. are built upon it because that is what is known. However, Latour argues that our entry into science must not be through “ready made science” (4), but through examining what is in that black box and questioning it. At first glance, Latour’s argument may be dense and difficult to understand, but overall, his message is clear: Deconstructing what is known and unquestioned is the best way to further advance our understanding in society. Relating this to human rights, many times there is this predisposed notion that female genital cutting is a violation of human rights. This notion is accepted and instead of trying to understand and question the reasoning behind this practice, campaigns against it are a general and popular response. For me, this is a challenge for those of us in western society who are so used to critiquing the unknown and choosing to act (with good intention) within this black box, not fully taking the time to truly understand.
Carla Obermeyer’s article Female Genital Surgeries: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable, addresses the problem that occurs when we choose to simply accept that “black box” without questions. Through her reviews of other scholars’ works on female cutting, Obermeyer poses that there are few studies that show that genital surgeries are linked to fatal complications. However, of those studies, deaths that occurred from cutting were the exception rather than the rule (92). Nonetheless, the rhetoric framed by human rights activists and those who are against female cutting use the limited studies that do report the data on pain, suffering, and mortality as a base to generalize about the whole practice of female genital cutting. Even though this data presents evidence of harm, accepting it as the truth (despite its scientific aspect) overlooks the possibility of so many other stories not reported that might provide disputing evidence. What we as citizens of Western society should learn to do is to think about how we frame issues like female cutting. Unnecessary. Dangerous. Hazardous. These are all words we use to describe this procedure, and then we proceed to use our scientific data and studies to further support these beliefs. However, what would happen if we began to question these numbers, and instead of taking them at face value began to examine for ourselves the meaning of female genital cutting? For example, in the 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) report we read, Female Genital Mutilation and Obstetric Outcome, reported alarming statistical data that showed female genital cutting, especially infibulation, was over 50% more likely to result in perinatal deaths than with women who had not undergone the procedure. However, the scale that was used to represent this data was not scaled equally to the proportion of the subjects tested. Thus, by questioning this study rather than by accepting the data as the complete truth, it opens up a discourse that allows scientific evidence to be reexamined. Although any death is a serious matter, it is important that we understand with the most accurate certainty the evidence that we are presented before classifying something as a human rights violation.
Sometimes the concrete and factual data that science gives us is not beneficial. Numbers and percentages can be helpful and even life saving. Just think of that trip to the doctor when you (or someone you know) found out that their blood pressure was too high. A few months later with the right medication, they were able to lower that number and be a healthier person. But what happens when numbers are overemphasized? Vicanne Adams in her chapter of Against Health, argues that the global health field has shifted from trying to care for and understand the patient” to pharmaceutical interventions and laboratory research. The focus on trials and controlled experiments (partly due to partnerships that NGOs develop with scientific foundations) has redefined health to mean successes in the scientific field. Through Adams chapter, while female genital cutting is not explicitly mentioned, we can see that this movement against the practice (framed within a scientific viewpoint) can eradicate the true meaning of health and human rights. That is, we at times end up putting more effort into using numbers and statistics to prove that female cutting is this horrible and life threatening practice, but we don’t take time to truly speak to or get a sense of who these women are.
Perhaps if we took a step back and instead of trying to categorize what is unknown into a dilemma, or a human rights violation, or a crime against humanity we may be better able to at least understand (although not necessarily agree) how to approach female genital cutting.
Sources
Latour, B. 1987. Opening Pandora’s Black Box. Science in Action. Harvard University Press, 1-17.
Obermeyer, C. 1999. Female Genital Surgeries: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 13(1): 79-106.
WHO study group. 2006. Female Genital Mutilation and Obstetric Outcome. The Lancet 367 (9525): 1835-1841.
Adams, V. 2010. Against Global Health? Arbitrating Science, Non-Science, and Nonsense through Health. Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality. New York: New York University Press.
Anthropology, FGM, and Human Rights 