This was written by Tami, and originally published at What Tami Said.
I have always been on the fence about Jezebel, the female-focused entry into the Gawker Media family of Web sites, described as:
…celebrity, fashion, and sex without the airbrushing. The witty, informative tone draws a readership that is intelligent and sophisticated, but still willing to get down and dirty. Jezebel does what those women’s monthlies only wish they could. SOURCE
The site makes grrrl power, big tent noises, but always seems more invested in bringing the outre, hipster snark.
A recent Jezebel recap of America’s Next Top Model that recounted an argument involving Fatima, a Somali-born contestant who is a victim of female genital mutilation, struck me as beyond the pale. Fatima’s opponent made the utterly ridiculous statement, “You take it in the back, because you’re black.” (I know. I know.) Jezebel agreed that the statement was racist and stupid, but added:
(Especially because Fatima probably takes it in the back because the front is sewn up. Awww snap! Sorry, that was mean.)
Really? This is “what those women’s monthlies only wish they could do.” Equally disturbing is that most commenters let the crack slip by. One even added to it, referring to the wanna-be model as “the girl who had her clit cut off.”
This, by the way, is what is so funny:
In a study of infibulation in the Horn of Africa, Pieters observed that the procedure involves extensive tissue removal of the external genitalia, including all of the labia minora and the inside of the labia majora. The labia majora are then held together using thorns or stitching. In some cases the girl’s legs have been tied together for two to six weeks, to prevent her from moving and to allow the healing of the two sides of the vulva. Nothing remains but the walls of flesh from the pubis down to the anus, with the exception of an opening at the inferior portion of the vulva to allow urine and menstrual blood to pass through, see Diagram 1D. Generally, a practitioner deemed to have the necessary skill carries out this procedure, and a local anesthetic is used. However, when carried out “in the bush,” infibulation is often performed by an elderly matron or midwife of the village, with no anesthesia used.[21] SOURCE
I know GenXers like me started the whole sardonic, no-sacred-cows thing, but God I wish sometimes we could take it all back. It is evidence of privilege that we can carelessly toss off bon mots about the mutilation of women in “third world” countries. Sure, that stuff happening to women “over there” is bad, but…
Hey, I laugh at snark. That is why I visit Jezebel from time to time in the first place. But I have never bought into the belief that all is fair in comedy. Laughing at some things just makes us all seem less humane.
Check out Gina’s post about Jezebel’s Black History Month celebration that encouraged black women to send in their best and worst hairstyles over the years, including “fuzzy fros,” “crooked cornrows” and “Jheri curls? Please???” More at What About Our Daughters. A head scratcher, this one.
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I highly dislike Jezebel. It just seems to offend me every time it opens its mouth. Laughing at FGM is a new low for it :/
Salaam Alaikum,I totally flip flop over Jezebel. Sometimes it gets it so wrong, other times, so right:http://jezebel.com/368655/is-vogues-lebron-kong-cover-offensive#c4732562Most female orientated media is utterly braindead, which is why it seems comparitively refreshing.
Safiya, I agree with you and the author. It’s fun to read because of the snark, and that Vogue cover was effed up. But Feministe and other race and feminist blogs covered the Vogue story. When it comes to us, Jezebel just doesn’t seem to be able to figure out that what they’re saying is offensive or insensitive–I think that goes way past snark.
Zeynab – I agree. I do comment on Jezebel and often it’s to challenge anti Muslim bigotry.However, I still wonder if I’m wasting my time. Is it better to ignore prejudice in the media, to not give them your money/page views, or to actively challenge and debate them?Feministe and Racialicious maybe more concious, but they still get some seriously ignorant comments.
Safiya, I definitely agree with you. Feministe had a post about Shariah that got some ridiculously ignorant comments along the lines of cutting off hands and what have you.What does everyone else think? Ignore media bias or try to change it? Are there situations that one is more effective/better than the other?
Ugh. Some comments are so disgusting I don’t know what to say.
thank you. i often argue with my friends over what comedy can address – not everything, in my opinion.i used to work with somali refugees. i never bothered to ask about the fgm – i didn’t need to. one day one of my clients, a pregnant victim of rape as so many are, showed up at my office said her water had broken and i conveyed her to the hospital. the doctor couldn’t examine her because he just couldn’t get in there. the rape was accomplished through simply repeated banging. i couldn’t help her, we had to leave. 50% of women with “sudanese” circumcisions as they call them die in childbirth. i don’t know what happened, i left that job.btw, one episode of nip tuck features a somali model whose toe they cut off to make her a new clit. then one of the doctors has sex with her to test it and it doesn’t work out, but it does when she tries masturbation. don’t know if you’d want to critique that…
its so sad that some ignorant muslims cut badly the female genitals, in my country some of the people use it to flow the old ways of pharaohs in egypt.. its so sad..