Women’s Issues – Page 4 – Population Matters-USA

Different types of Female Genital Mutilation

I have often heard that the need to reduce population growth in African countries is less important than in rich countries because consumption is so much lower in Africa. It is true that the impact of a person in Africa is much less than someone in a rich country, however there are important but different reasons for Africans to reduce their fertility.

Although the average footprint of a person in Africa is small, there are already more feet than the land can bear in some places. Slowing population growth there will help people be healthier, happier and more productive. Traditions exist that are harmful to women and also lead to high fertility. These injurious traditions may have had their function in the past, but they have no place in the 21^st century.

In the past I was a cultural relativist. I believed that the practices in other cultures shouldn’t be evaluated by our standards. When I learned about Female Genital Mutilation, I changed my mind. If one believes that girls and women deserve the same respect as boys and men, one cannot be a cultural relativist.

FMG is practiced by many cultures in Africa. It consists of removing part or most of the external genitalia of girls. It is usually done without anesthesia and often with a dirty blade.When the margins of the vulva are separated by the (brutal) slicing, acacia needles are used to hold them together. Think of the agony FMG survivors suffer! Some victims die from blood loss or infection. The pain returns during intercourse and childbirth if the vaginal opening has been sewn nearly shut. Fortunately, there are many organizations in Africa that are working to get rid of FMG. Often they substitute another, more benign, coming-of-age ritual for girls.

Child marriage is another damaging custom of some African cultures. Typically, the girl’s arranged marriage is shortly after she starts to menstruate, and she is forced to wed a man many years older than she. A girlchild is considered a burden in many societies, so the best way to get unburdened is to marry her off. Worse, rape of a young girl is not uncommon. Since virginity is a requirement for marriage in many societies, the girl’s parents force their daughter to marry her rapist. The pitiable girl is thus dominated by her husband for the rest of her life.

The psychological effects on a girl who is married as a young teen must be terrible, however the physical effects can be fatal. Her pelvis may be too small to give birth if she conceives before her bones have finished growing. Obstructed labor may kill the fetus—resulting in a stillbirth. Sometimes pressure of the fetal head against the girl’s pelvis blocks blood flow to the girl’s tissues. The dead flesh dissolves, forming a hole through which pee and/or poop can pour.

You might think that child marriage and FGM don’t exist in the USA, but that is wrong. Some immigrants practice both. In addition, some non-immigrant groups have allowed early marriage, often in response to early teen pregnancies. Delaware was our first state to ban marriage before age 18, only 4 years ago. Women who marry young tend to have more children and seldom advance far in education.

Both child marriage and FGM are means of subjugating women; so is cutting short their education. Another way power is taken away from women is the absence of something we take for granted—clean and safe toilet facilities at schools. Many girls quit school after their period starts because their school lacks adequate, private toilet facilities.

Where girls and women are treated as inferior, they have little control over their lives. They don’t have power over what happens to the most personal parts of their bodies, nor when or whom they marry. They may not say when they have sex, nor limit the number of children they bear, nor use contraception if they want to.

Many organizations work to empower African women by putting an end to child marriage and FGM. One favorite is the Population Media Center, which has made great advances in education about these evils.

Although I am not an anthropologist and have spent only a little time in Africa, these seem to be some reasons that the population is growing so rapidly there. In the future I’ll write about religions which encourage large families, and about overpopulation causing famine—one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

We’re all aware that the role of women has changed in the last centuries, but probably less aware that their biology has also changed. Together, these changes have helped change society.

Currently an average girl in the USA undergoes menarche (starts to menstruate) before age 13. In the 19^th century a girl was 4 years older before reaching that landmark. We aren’t sure why girls are maturing earlier, but there are probably multiple factors. Better diet is definitely a contributing cause, as is obesity. Chronic stress may also be a factor, and endocrine disrupting chemicals such as BPA probably have an effect. Interestingly, menopause (the permanent cessation of periods) may occur slightly later than a century ago.

Menstrual problems may come along with menarche. Usually this is just cramps that are controlled with over-the-counter medication. Because girls often don’t ovulate for the first months after menarche, a girl may have heavy and/or irregular periods that may lead to anemia. These problems can interfere with the young woman’s life, causing her to miss school, sports or other important activities.

Interest in boys usually follows menarche. The same hormones that cause a young woman to menstruate also affect her libido. Since girls are maturing earlier, it follows that they will also be interested in sex at an earlier age. On the other hand, the average woman’s education lasts many years longer than it did a century ago. Our mores are still based on the way people lived in the 19^th century, when it was common for a woman to wed shortly after graduation from high school, or even to drop out to marry. Her husband was usually the breadwinner and she stayed home to care for the children—the first of whom was born not long after marriage.

One of my heroes, Dr. Malcolm Potts, has observed: “…the modern woman can have 300 or more menstrual cycles. Given a later puberty and pregnancies separated by long intervals of ovulation-suppressing breastfeeding, women in the few surviving hunter gatherer societies, may have as few as 60 life time cycles.”

Can “the pill” safely help young women? Oral contraceptives are the most effective way to regulate periods. They decrease blood loss and reduce cramping, plus they make periods predictable. It is even also possible to skip periods by changing how pills are taken. For some, oral contraceptives will help with the moodiness (PMS) that may come before a period.

Young women may benefit from other good side effects of “the pill”, including improving acne, decreasing the risk of anemia or ovarian cysts, and later decreasing the chances of a woman developing ovarian or uterine cancer.

Menstruation interferes with the lives of many women. In less developing countries girls often miss school when menstruating, or drop out entirely—especially if they cannot afford pads. That is also true for some girls in the USA: Chicago Public Schools have a policy which “…requires that schools provide free menstrual products in bathrooms to improve gender equity for people who miss school because they don’t have access to these products.” Denver Public Schools and some other Colorado schools also provide easy access to free menstrual products. Scotland has gone a step further—menstrual products are free to all who need them.

Another problem in developing countries is that many schools lack clean and private washrooms. “Days for Girls”, an international nonprofit organization, provides help to many young students. In addition to making and supplying reusable pads and ways to carry and clean them, instructors go to schools and talk to young women about menstrual care and staying safe.

The cost of menstrual protection can add up, and it is an expense that boys and men don’t have. To make things worse, in many states (including Colorado) these products are taxed because they are not considered “necessities of life”. Organizations such as Period Equity are tackling the “pink tax”. In Colorado, House Bill 1127 was introduced in the Legislature in 2017 to do away with this unfair tax, but the bill was postponed indefinitely. The City of Denver has already stopped taxing these necessities for women; isn’t it time that the whole state follows along?