What would Susan B. Anthony Say?
“Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.” — Susan B. Anthony
If Susan B. Anthony looked into Massachusetts’ future, it would be fair to say that she would be shocked and deeply disappointed that her home state still has not criminalized female genital mutilation (FGM). What is going on with the Bay State, the ancestral home of women’s rights?
One of America’s most famous female activists was born in Adams, Massachusetts, in 1820. Anthony is largely credited as the first women’s rights activist who led the women’s suffrage movement. The Bay State boasts of a long history of strong female freedom fighters such as Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone and Abby Kelley Foster, who, like Susan B. Anthony, fought valiantly for women’s right to vote and other civil and economic rights for women. The state was known for these Bay State-bred, hearty females who fearlessly fought for their rights.
Until now.
Although the Population Reference Bureau ranks Massachusetts in the top-quarter tier of states at risk of female genital mutilation with an estimated 14,200 women and girls at risk, Massachusetts has repeatedly failed to pass legislation to criminalize FGM. The CDC also estimates that over 513,000 women and girls are at risk of FGM in the United States.
Since the federal judge in the Detroit FGM trial found the federal statute unconstitutional in 2018, the urgency to pass state FGM laws is ever more pressing. Now victims can only rely on state FGM laws for protection from this brutal procedure. Local prosecutors possess and can expend far more resources to investigate and prosecute this heinous practice against little girls if state anti-FGM laws are in place.
However, Massachusetts and 11 other states have failed to pass state laws criminalizing FGM, thus providing a haven for mutilators. Massachusetts’ northern neighbor Vermont enacted an anti-FGM law this year.
Although the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association and child advocacy groups have supported the fight to pass FGM criminal legislation, the bills continue to falter. Mariya Taher, an FGM survivor and powerful anti-FGM activist from the Dawoodi Bohra Shia sect whose religious leader mandated FGM, recently speculated in an editorial about the underlying reasons why the Massachusetts FGM bill has not passed in the legislature:
“Yet I’ve been told that the reason the act will not move forward is that Massachusetts legislators lack the political will to recognize FGM/C (cutting) as violence.
The skeptic in me wonders if re-election has anything to do with their ‘political will.’ There is a fear, a misconception that by passing this bill and saying FGM/C is illegal, we would be targeting existing vulnerable communities because FGM/C happens to Muslims, to immigrants, to those communities already targeted by the Trump administration.”
Surely Susan B. Anthony would not be able to fathom that an inane and fatuous reason, like political correctness, prevents passage of legislation to punish a vicious and barbaric practice of mutilating the genitals of innocent little Massachusetts girls? Clearly, there is no other explanation for this embarrassing failure to protect female rights.
How far we have fallen!
Please consider joining more than 300,000 others to sign a Change.org petition calling on Gov. Charlie Baker, Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo and President of the Senate Harriette Chandler to take action and protect all girls in Massachusetts, as FGM is nearly always carried out on minors.
This article first appeared on May 13, 2020 in the Massachusetts Leominster Champion