Phyllis Chesler writes about a Sunday New York Times magazine article describing female circumcision in Indonesia

..the article is essentially a National Geographic-style photo essay subtitled: “Inside a female circumcision ceremony for young Muslim girls.” The photos are by Stephanie Sinclair, the brief text is by Sara Corbett.

What is a human rights atrocity with life-long and life-threatening consequences is here being presented as a “tradition,” often a harmless one, sometimes not, but always a well-intentioned one.

According to the article, there is “little blood involved”—well, how bad can that be? And, “antiseptic is used”— well, this is not dangerous at all, is it? Finally, afterwards, the child is given a “celebratory gift”—what, am I the kind of westerner who, Grinch-style, would deny the child her gift in order to make my twisted, “racist” argument? As the article states , the child clutching (or drinking) her gift “has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia.”

These photographs were taken in 2006 on a day where 200 girls were genitally mutilated . In honor of the “prophet Mohammed’s birthday,” the Assalaam Foundation subsidized both the mutilation—and the “gift.” According to the Foundation’s chairman of social services, the cutting/mutilation will “stabilize her libido;” “make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband’; and “will balance her psychology.”...

I will let Dr. Bostom, who is a physician and the author of the forthcoming book, “The Legacy of Islamic AntiSemitism” (a daunting, compelling, and indispensable book), have the last words. He has written a passionate article titled “Clitoral Relativism-Female Genital Mutilation in ‘Tolerant” Islamic Indonesia. ” Quoting from the British Medical Journal on the subject, he reminds us that:

“Female genital mutilation, also misleadingly known as female circumcision, is usually performed on girls ranging in age from 1 week to puberty. Immediate physical complications include severe pain, shock, infection, bleeding, acute urinary infection, tetanus, and death. Long-term problems include chronic pain, difficulties with micturition [urination] and menstruation, pelvic infection leading to infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor during childbirth. ”

He notes that FGM is illegal in the United States. He views the above article as “misleading.”

Speaking of misleading articles, the author of "A Cutting Tradition", Sara Corbett, also wrote a cover story for the New York Times called "The Women’s War", about female Iraq veterans.

Amorita Randall, one of the women who appeared in The Women's War never served in Iraq and made up much of what she told Sara Corbett in her interview.

The Times printed this retraction, saying "If The Times had learned these facts before publication, it would not have included Ms. Randall in the article."

Apparently Corbett had some reservations about the woman's story, so she used "hedge-words and qualifiers" to describe Randall in the piece.

One reader commented:

Boy, this sort of thing, "a lie can disclose a bigger truth" or "the truth doesn't matter, is how you feel that does",nonsense is really scary. It has been used and is being used particularly by feminists such as in the Duke Non-rape case. Some professors just went with the thought that it didnt' matter if the students were innocent because throughout history privileged white young men have abused poor black women.

Like I said, that kind of thinking is truly frightening.

Is it any surprise that Americans don't trust the mass media anymore?