Lynn M. Thomas

An excellent study of the controversies surrounding female excision from the early twentieth century to the 'Female Genital Mutilation' controversy of the 1990s. The author is primarily concerned with the earlier period however, and seeks to complicate our understandings of 'colonial impositions' and 'African resistance' by complicated the categories of 'colonialist' and 'African' along class, gender, and generational lines. She demonstrates how efforts to stop practices of female excision took power away from older women by placing female sexuality in the hands of male law makers and government officials. The book illustrates the complexities of these controversies and is worth a read for anyone interested in 'FGM' specifically or trans-national women's issues more generally.… (más)