Response to Dirt over 'Breast Ironing' and connection between mutilation of female bodies in African/Middle Eastern and Western cultures

THIS I agree with: "It doesn't seem that far of a stretch to me
It's all about others' perception of one's gender
Specifically what it means to be female
What is has meant culturally in many times, many places
And methods of escaping that stereotypical meaning
Since nobody is ever born in any kind of wrong body
It's escaping from its perceived constraints
Not dismantling the systems that shame and abuse the female."

I so agree with that. Mary Daly in Gyn/Ecology one of her greatest works critiqued Female Genital Mutilation, whether practiced by Western doctors on females who were Butch or had strong sexual desires OR by African women on their female children so they would be 'acceptable' to men. She critiqued Chinese footbinding hobbling women for life, so they would be more attractive to men, she criticized women overly made up as 'painted birds', all those things women do to themselves or to young girls to make them acceptable to men.

In this case, it's the reverse: it's to 'protect' them from the male gaze, but it damages and tortures the young girl they are doing it to. So she doesn't get pregnant at a young age, through sexual assault(and it'll be her fault of course, being 'tempting'), or submitting to his attentions for her.

When Dirt posted her video of Female to male genital surgery I could only watch half of it, because I got so disgusted by the process, and also the removal of major amounts of skin from the arm, and the destruction of her vagina that it hit me hard it was NOTHING DIFFERENT THAN FEMALE MUTILATION done to women from Islamic and African cultures. This is still a very serious problem.

These practices, whether the breast binding, the breast flattening, the female genital mutilations from surgeries in the West or in Africa or Middle East ALL COME FROM DEEP DEEP MISOGYNY, TORTURE AND FEMALE HATRED. It's all control over the female body. Whether to distance one's self from the PAIN of being Female, in the case of FTM's, or to control a female to make her more acceptable to men, or less acceptable so she'll be left alone. Patriarchy and female hatred lives behind ALL these practices. Period.
        -Labryis Swinging,
         -FeistyAmazon