the hidden face of eve by nawal el saadawi

The outer opening of the vagina is the only portion left intact, not however without having ensured that, during the process of repairing, some narrowing of the opening is carried out with a few extra stitches. They cut off the clitoris, the two major outer lips ( labia majora) and the two minor inner lips ( labia minora). But in the Sudan, the operation consists in the complete removal of all the external genital organs. In Egypt it is only the clitoris which is amputated, and usually not completely. I was horrified to observe that the Sudanese girl undergoes an operation for circumcision which is ten times more cruel than that to which Egyptian girls are subjected. My profession led me, at one stage, to examine patients coming from various Arab countries. And most of them, if not all, became the victims later on of sexual or mental distortions as a result of this experience. Others were afflicted with acute or chronic infections from which they sometimes suffered for the rest of their days. Many of them used to lose their lives as a result of the inhuman and primitive way in which the operation, savage enough in itself, was performed. There I very often had to treat young girls who had come to the out-patients clinic bleeding profusely after a circumcision. Nightmares of a similar nature followed me throughout the years, especially during the period when I was working as a medical doctor in the rural areas. Even when I had grown up and graduated as a doctor in 1955, I could not forget the painful incident that had made me lose my childhood once and for all, and that deprived me during my youth and for many years of married life from enjoying the fullness of my sexuality and the completeness of life that can only come from all-round psychological equilibrium.

The hidden face of eve by nawal el saadawi