Cultural and Political Paradigms of FGM: an Intersection of Race and Sex in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy
Cultural and Political Paradigms of FGM: an Intersection of Race and Sex in Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy

Summary/Abstract: The study attempts to explore the intersections of race and sex in connection with the cultural and political paradigms of female genital mutilation (FGM) in African American novelist Alice Walker’s 1992 novel Possessing the Secret of Joy. FGM involves inter-relatedness of race and sex in its implementation and sustenance in the name of cultural relativism and political freedom. Tashi’s genital mutilation, her life-long physical and psychological complications, her murder of the circumciser M’Lissa and her execution in the novel question the pervasive influence of both gender and racial specifications. The culturally motivated specifications are essentially political as they control the lives of women or more specifically black women in society. Great liberators and political leaders use FGM as a political tool to advance black community’s cause for political freedom from the Europeans/whites. Liberation is only meant for the black men, not black women. Black women are merely used as cultural defenders. It indicates historical and political exclusion of black women like Tashi from the dominant male culture.

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