(Author: David Benatar, Vol. 63, #3, Chanukah 2008)
Many contemporary Jews espouse egalitarianism (of the sexes). However, Jewish egalitarians are not all of one stripe. For some, the extent of their egalitarianism is limited. My question is not directed to these restricted ‘egalitarians’. Instead it is posed to the other egalitarians – those who go much further and advocate complete equality of the sexes in Judaism. Very many Jewish egalitarians fall into this category. On their view, women should be allowed to don tefillin (phylacteries), tallitot (prayer shawls) and kippot (skullcaps), and to become rabbis or cantors. On this view, women may be counted in a minyan (quorum for prayer), may be called to the Torah, and a girl’s batmitzvah need be no different from a boy’s barmitzvah. Indeed, although equal treatment is not the same as identical treatment, the most committed of Jewish egalitarians seem to understand the former as requiring the latter. This may be because it is the surest way of responding to the traditionalists, who often justify their differing treatment of the sexes by saying that it is merely different treatment and not inequality.
There is, however, one matter about which these Jewish egalitarians do not seek identical treatment of the sexes – brit mila, the covenant of circumcision. Although they are quick to advocate a neonatal ceremony for girls in order to avoid these girls being deprived of the attention given to newborn boys, they do not suggest that girls too should be circumcised. The irony of this silence is compounded by their attempts to parallel the ceremonies in numerous other ways. Thus, among the names given to the ceremonies for girl-children are ones that are obviously intended to match that of the circumcision ceremony or boys – including brit bat (the covenant of a daughter) and hachnasat bat l’brit (the entering of a daughter into the covenant). Among the possible timings of these female ceremonies is the eighth day, and one reason for this option is the allegedly egalitarian one that this “is the same day on which a ceremony for a boy would be held”.
Thus it seems that egalitarianism is cited for establishing a ceremony for girls (and thus not focusing only on boys), and for having it on the same day as the ceremony for boys. Yet, egalitarianism is not thought to require the same ceremony for girls as for boys – or at least as similar a ceremony as is possible. This, it might be suggested, is because the most committed of Jewish egalitarians typically do not require anybody to perform any rituals. They are more interested in religious rights – entitlements or permissions to perform those practices one chooses – than in religious duties or requirements. However, this explanation is inadequate because Jewish egalitarians are neither agitating even for a religious right to circumcise Jewish girls, nor actually circumcising their daughters in all cases that they would (or do) circumcise their sons. Thus even if circumcision is understood as a religious option rather than a religious requirement, it is curious that Jewish egalitarians do not exercise the option for girls when they do for boys.
Jewish egalitarians’ failure to extend circumcision to girls is particularly strange when they take brit mila to be a sexist ritual on the grounds that it is only for boys. Why, one wonders, not avoid this purported sexism by extending the practice to girls, given that one is extending every other previously exclusively male religious practice to females? This is particularly so, given not only the Jewish religious significance of circumcision as a sign of the covenant between God and the Jews, but also the strong attachment that many otherwise non-practising Jews have to circumcision. The Jew bears this sign in his flesh, but the Jewess does not. Half of the Jewish people lack the physical mark that is widely associated with Jews. One would have thought that egalitarians would want to rectify this oversight.
What explains the apparent blind-spot in an otherwise vigorous Jewish egalitarianism? A number of possible justifications might be offered, but none are compelling within the egalitarian paradigm:
Female circumcision is not a mitzva or precept.
First, it might be suggested that whereas circumcision of males is a mitzva, a commandment or religious precept, circumcision of girls is not. But this justification for not extending circumcision to girls is a non-starter for egalitarians. That a mitzva or any other religious practice has not applied, historically, to females, is no impediment to an egalitarian extending it to females. They are in the business of rendering such unequal precepts equal. That is why they count women in minyan, why they allow women to wear tallitot and tefillin, why they call women to the Torah, ordain female rabbis and are led in prayer by female cantors. It is why they create neonatal ceremonies for girls to parallel the brit mila for boys.
Nor would it be very convincing for egalitarians to retort that female circumcision could never become as deeply culturally entrenched a practice as brit mila is for boys. First, one could say the same about so many other practices. Second, egalitarians are not usually that easily deterred. Even if it were unlikely that a female version of a religious practice were unlikely to become as culturally entrenched as the historically male version, the egalitarian quest is to get as close as possible to the egalitarian goal of complete equality. Why give up before one has even made an attempt?
Female “circumcision” is a more radical procedure.
Second, it may be suggested that in those cultures in which the genitals of young girls and women are cut, the procedure is much more radical than is male circumcision. At least part of, but often the entire clitoris is removed. This approximates not circumcision but instead a partial or complete penectomy in men. Female genital cutting is more radical still when it involves, as it often does, the removal of the labia minori, excision of much of the labia majori and then infibulating the girl or woman. Thus Jewish egalitarians might claim that they do not perform female ‘circumcision’ because unlike male circumcision, it is a quite radical and harmful procedure and thus at odds with egalitarianism.
This justification for not circumcising Jewish girls (and female converts) fails because it does not distinguish between female genital cutting the way it is usually performed in other cultures and the way it could be performed by Jewish egalitarians. As I shall show shortly, there is a form of female genital cutting that is no more radical than male circumcision is. The second justification thus collapses.
Circumcision is uniquely male.
At this point it may be retorted that circumcision is uniquely male because only men have a foreskin – the piece of tissue that is removed in a brit mila. On this view, circumcision cannot be extended to females because females cannot be circumcised. Thus a covenant of circumcision is not merely a historically sexist practice, but is also an inevitably and unavoidably sexist practice.
If circumcision is defined as excision of the foreskin from the glans penis, then indeed females cannot be circumcised. But this is a stunningly and literally phallocentric conception of circumcision. Given how much egalitarians and feminists rail against phallocentricism and call for a more inclusive view, it is hard to imagine how they could consistently adopt this narrow definition of circumcision. On a broader definition, circumcision also refers to excision of the clitoral prepuce, which is the female analogue of the foreskin. Once circumcision is understood in this way, then it can no longer be said that circumcision is uniquely and unavoidably male.
Circumcision benefits males but not females
Next it might be argued that although both males and females can be circumcised, circumcision benefits males but not females. Thus egalitarians might justify restricting circumcision to males on the ground that it constitutes a health benefit to them but not to females. There are a number of problems with this argument.
First, assuming that circumcision does not harm females, this argument can only have force if one sees circumcision as primarily a health intervention rather than as essentially a religious precept. For if it is a religious precept independent of whether it bestows a health advantage, then Jewish egalitarians seem bound to extending it to females (as long as it is not harmful to females). Since many Jewish egalitarians do not practice male circumcision for health reasons but only for religious ones, they are hard-pressed to invoke absent health benefits in females to justify why they do not extend circumcision to girls.
Second, the reluctance to justify male circumcision on health grounds is appropriate. Although it was once widely thought that male circumcision did bestow health benefits, it is now far from clear that there is any such benefit.
Female circumcision demeans women.
Finally, it might be argued that female circumcision demeans girls and women. To get off the starting blocks, this objection must again appeal to female genital cutting in other cultural contexts. It is often argued that in these contexts it is a form of male control over female sexuality. In excising the clitoris, it is said, an important source of sexual pleasure is removed. In infibulating a girl – sewing together what remains of the labia majori – infidelity is prevented.
Even if one thinks that these more radical forms of female genital cutting treat women as sexual objects to be controlled by their men-folk, it is hard to see how Jewish egalitarians’ adopting the milder form of female genital cutting could be tainted by association. This is so for a few reasons. First, one need not think that excision of the clitoral prepuce diminishes sexual pleasure. Second, if one does think that it has this effect, then one should think that removal of the foreskin has a similar effect1 and one would have no reason for thinking that the effect would be worse in females than in males. Only a non-egalitarian could want to avoid a reduction of sexual pleasure for women but not for men. Third, egalitarians take brit mila to be a sexist favoring of males by affirming them and elevating their status. If this is so, and some rectification is needed, then it is hard to understand how an analogous procedure introduced specifically to grant the same status to girls could possibly be thought to be demeaning to girls. Either preputial excision (in a given cultural context) is demeaning or it is not. If it is not, then it is not for both boys and girls. And if it is, then it is for both boys and girls. It is hard to see how egalitarians could think otherwise.
None of the above five justifications for Jewish egalitarians’ not extending circumcision to females succeeds. What, then, is the real reason why Jewish egalitarians do not circumcise females? One plausible answer is this. Many ‘egalitarians’ are not really egalitarians. They are motivated not so much by egalitarianism as by advancing the interests of girls and women. Where girls and women are at a disadvantage relative to boys and men, as is often the case, advancing their interests is functionally equivalent to egalitarianism. Both require improving the standing of females. However, egalitarianism diverges from the advancement of female interests in cases where females are already advantaged over males. The absence of a neonatal ceremony for girls is viewed as a disadvantage for girls. This is why Jewish egalitarians want a parallel ceremony for them. However, because circumcision itself, as distinct from the ceremony attendant upon it, is a cultural burden, those who are interested only in advancing female interests have no incentive to extend this burden to females. But a true egalitarian would think it unfair that a boy is cut while a girl is not. Therefore, a true egalitarian would either extend the burden to females or remove it from males.
It speaks either to the disingenuousness or, more likely, the self-deception of those Jewish egalitarians who simultaneously insist that brit mila constitutes a sexist favoring of males while declining to extend the same alleged favor to females. This paradoxical stance suggests that whereas they say, and perhaps consciously think, that brit mila favors boys over girls, they recognize at some deeper level that it does not.
Here we should note that a neonatal ceremony means nothing to the neonate. An infant boy is unaware that he is the centre of attention. He is unaware that others are making a fuss over him and rejoicing at his birth and his induction into a religious covenant. Similarly, an infant girl for whom there is no such ceremony cannot feel deprived of any of this. And if she is given such a ceremony it does her no more good than such a ceremony does an infant boy. Thus the ceremony is more for the benefit of others. While egalitarians who give a girl a batmizva ceremony comparable to a boy’s may plausibly be thought to be benefiting her, giving an infant girl a neonatal ceremony to parallel a boy’s cannot plausibly be said to be benefiting her. What does make a difference to an infant is whether its genitals are surgically altered without an anaesthetic. Jewish boys do bear this burden, while Jewish girls do not.
If it were Jewish girls who were circumcised and Jewish boys who were not, I suspect, given the foregoing, that feminists would offer strident arguments that circumcision discriminated against girls and constituted a patriarchal control of female genitals. Even if the surgery were performed by women, these women would be judged, as they are in cultures that do cut female genitals, to be instruments of patriarchy. If men began to join the ranks of circumcisers, it would not be hailed as the egalitarian advance that the certification of mohalot – female circumcisers (of male children) – has been in Jewish egalitarian circles. Here it has been said that a mohelet – female circumciser – can give a women’s touch and that mohalot “may have a special ability to relate to mothers who are having anxiety” about the circumcision of their sons. But this sounds like something we would surely not hear from feminists and egalitarians – namely, recommending a male obstetrician because he brings a “man’s touch” and can relate to the husband of the woman in labor. The irony of using egalitarianism to extend the status of circumciser to women but not using it to extend the status of circumcised to girls seems lost on our egalitarians. Yet on a true Jewish egalitarian view, there is nothing wrong with a female circumciser, or rabbi or cantor – on condition that she is circumcised.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
David Benatar is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town.
