In Livonia, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, nine young Muslim girls, transported
from Minnesota, Illinois, and elsewhere in Michigan, were all subjected to genital
mutilation (Belluck, 2018). The girls’ parents, who ordered and paid for the cut-
ting, and four doctors and clinic employees, were all members of a Shiite Muslim
sect based in India, the Dawoodi Bohra. They were prosecuted under a 1996 federal
law that outlawed female genital mutilation in the U.S. But, on November 20, 2018,
U.S. District Judge Bernard Freidman, ruled the federal law to be unconstitutional
(Belluck, 2018). The judge’s ruling was based entirely on the matter of jurisdiction.
He stated that Congress had no authority to address a “local criminal activity,” that
could only be penalized by state laws. All charges were dismissed against the eight
adults directly involved in the girls’ mutilations.

In that vein, if sexual mutilations were being inflicted on males today - if
any significant number of parents in the U.S. were privately arranging to have their
sons’ penises sliced off, based on their religious motivations - stopping this atrocity
would undoubtedly have become an urgent national priority. Muslim girls deserve
no less care and concern.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert Brannon, Ph.D., is a social psychologist at Brooklyn College, City University of
New York (CUNY), who specializes in issues of gender, violence against women, the
commercial sex-industry, attitude measurement, and male gender role analysis. He has
taught courses in women’s studies, the psychology of masculinity, and the psychology of
prejudice. He is active in the National Organization for Women in New York State, and
Chairs the National Organization for Men Opposing Sexism (NOMAS) Men's Studies
Association and the Committee on Feminist Movement History (Nomas.org).