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Government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion increased in 2015 for the first time in three years, according to Pew Research Center's latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.
The share of countries with "high" or "very high" levels of government restrictions – i.e., laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices – ticked up from 24% in 2014 to 25% in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage of countries with high or very high levels of social hostilities – i.e., acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups in society – increased in 2015, from 23% to 27%. Both of these increases follow two years of declines in the percentage of countries with high levels of restrictions on religion by these measures.
Among the world's 25 most populous countries, Russia, Egypt, India, Pakistan and Nigeria had the highest overall levels of government restrictions and social hostilities involving religion. Egypt had the highest levels of government restrictions in 2015, while Nigeria had the highest levels of social hostilities.
Global Restrictions on Religion Rise Modestly
Does this reflect your personal experience ?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @01:26PM (38 children)
I'll note that Egypt is a hotbed of female genital mutilation (90% of the women there have been circumcised); I'll also note that wherever there is female circumcision, there is also male circumcision.
Religion is a mindrot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Thursday April 20 2017, @03:28PM (37 children)
I'll note that Egypt is a hotbed of female genital mutilation (90% of the women there have been circumcised);
It's shocking, however 91% of boys born in the 70s in The US were circumcised, the US is a hotbed of male genital mutilation, and we tend to hold western countries to higher standards.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @03:38PM (13 children)
Is it any wonder that nobody takes the West seriously on the matter of female genital mutilation?
Muslims, who traditionally circumcise boys when they are adolescents, know what's what: If you condone cutting up boys' sexual organs, then it makes no sense to condemn cutting up girls' sexual organs.
Don't think there's a double standard? Think again.
It's illegal, and determined to be a mutilation, under international and national law even to prick with a pin the labia of a minor female; yet, male circumcision removes upwards of 50% of a boy's penis skin, much of which is specialized to providing both protection of and sexual pleasure for the sex organ.
It's insane. The US is insane. YOU ARE ALL INSANE!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 20 2017, @04:34PM (11 children)
To be fair, what I'm hearing now is that MGM has been on a downward trend in the US for some time now, except among Jews of course.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday April 20 2017, @04:45PM (10 children)
Jews and Muslims are practically the same in their beliefs.
I'm glad that in the UK it's gone in the right direction
An estimated 3.8% of male children in the UK in 2000 were being circumcised by the age of 15.[44] The researchers stated that too many boys, especially under the age of 5, were still being circumcised because of a misdiagnosis of phimosis. They called for a target to reduce the percentage to 2%.
In the US though things are bad
In 2005, about 56 percent of male newborns were circumcised prior to release from the hospital according to statistics from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.[21]
A 2008 study of male infants born in the US state of Maryland found that the circumcision rate was 75.3% based on hospital discharge data files, and 82.3% based on maternal post-partum survey data.[28]
The CDC reported in 2011 that, following an earlier increase in neonatal circumcision rates, rates decreased in the period 1999 to 2010. Citing three different data sources, most recent rates were 56.9% in 2008 (NHDS) 56.3% in 2008 (NIS), and 54.7% in 2010 (CDM).[32]
Quotes from wikipedia.
OK, 50-70% is not 90% bad, but it's still very very bad.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:10PM (9 children)
Right, but what is the trend? I'm pretty sure the male circumcision rate in the US was quite a bit higher 40+ years ago, probably well over 90%.
From what I hear, over in continental Europe it's pretty rare outside of Jewish communities. It's really a strange US custom that doesn't seem to be very correlated with religion.
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:35PM (8 children)
Yes, it is in decline in the U.S.
It's really a strange US custom that doesn't seem to be very correlated with religion.
Well, it is correlated with Judaism and Islam. But otherwise, it's mostly correlated with the rise of a distinctive American religion, i.e., organized "medicine."
I already said this a bit below, but basically nobody who wasn't Jewish (or Muslim) in the U.S. in the mid-1800s was circumcised. But then doctors started using it as a "treatment" for various conditions. In some cases, it was a legitimate treatment, but in the final decades of the 1800s it became more standard for physicians to use it for all sorts of conditions that vaguely might have to do with genitals. It was a small step from that idea to the recommendation that infants be circumcised as a preventative. This became common on the advice of the burgeoning organized licensed physician movement in the U.S. in the early 1900s.
Within a few decades, better understanding of many diseases meant that the original justifications no longer made sense, but doctors continued to advocate it (along with a battery of other weird stuff, a lot of which was borderline quackery) as part of their "hygiene" guidelines until the mid 20th century. (Part of those "hygiene" concerns, it should be noted, had to do with prevention of masturbation, which was also viewed by physicians as a matter of "hygiene" in that period -- and circumcision supposedly lessened it.)
By ca. 1950, medical science had basically progressed to the point that any reasonable medical researcher could probably figure out that circumcision was unnecessary unless there was some serious physical issue... and yet it continued to be recommended by most doctors, largely because of the authoritarian structure of medical education in the U.S., which traditionally focused not on the most recent research, but on what a more experienced and senior physician told you was his opinion of the best practice.
Seriously -- until the past few decades, there's a lot of the rise of organized medicine in the U.S. that looks a lot more like religious doctrine, propagated through societies of "initiates" who don ceremonial white coats, rather than "science." (Just in the past couple decades, with the rise of the "evidence-based medicine," the authoritarian education of doctors has finally started to decline more.) Thankfully, a lot of the quackery gradually worked itself out over the generations, but circumcision had become so well established by the mid-20th century as standard practice in the U.S. that parents EXPECTED it. To this day, the best predictor of whether an infant is circumcised in the U.S. has little to do with religion or socioeconomic status or race or whatever -- but with "whether Daddy is circumcised," because parents want kids who "look like Daddy."
But if you're looking for someone to "blame" for the rise of circumcision, look at the religion-like indoctrination propagated by the burgeoning medical profession in the early 20th century.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:52PM
By the way -- I should be clear that I obviously acknowledge modern medicine did a lot of good things. I only wanted to highlight the stronger role of tradition and authority in medicine and clinical practice, which often ended up promoting strange or even barbaric practices with little scientific evidence of effectiveness.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 20 2017, @06:04PM
Bias in the research...
"If my dad and mom had me circumcised, it must be a great thing with positive effects"
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 20 2017, @06:06PM (3 children)
Sorry, one other thing I forgot to mention that played into this -- many people today don't realize this, but until the late 1900s doctors basically were taught that babies couldn't feel pain.
I'm absolutely serious. It sounds INSANE, but it was standard medical teaching. Until the 1980s, lots of physicians performed major surgeries (like open heart surgeries) on babies with no anaesthesia. (Granted, anaesthesia was much more risky in earlier generations, but the idea that it wouldn't even be necessary for infants because they couldn't feel pain... that's the sort of nonsense only doctors could believe.)
Anyhow, keep that in mind when you're judging the whole circumcision thing -- doctors legitimately believed that lopping off a chunk of a newborn's penis caused no pain (despite the screaming that inevitably resulted). It makes it a lot easier to understand how physicians could advocate mutilating infants given what they were taught back then about it all.
By the way, if you don't believe me about this, here's the New York Times [nytimes.com] reporting on how major medical journals finally were acknowledging that infants experience pain... in 1987.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @10:09PM (2 children)
Interesting, I hadn't heard that one. I found a review (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23548489) that claims the science was so settled in the 1950s on this topic that no one bothered talking about it anymore. In fact they started inflicting "not pain" on infants for diagnostic purposes (since they would still "react").
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 20 2017, @10:24PM (1 child)
Thanks for the study link. It's one in a series of very strange medical traditions that continued into recent years. To this day, many older physicians don't bother even giving a local anesthetic to an infant before circumcision, despite the fact that safe practices for doing so have been known for decades, with extremely low risk for adverse effects. This practice is basically a holdover from the older belief that pain to infants doesn't matter... Except it does. (Subsequent studies have shown longer -term behavioral differences in infants who have been circumcised without any pain relief, as well as higher risks of complications afterwards, probably due to the shock the extreme pain sends their systems into.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @12:30AM
Apparently most parents had no idea, but if a mother did find out they weren't using anesthesia and complained... they would call her insane or report her as an abusive parent. WTF?
http://www.recoveredscience.com/ROP_preemiepain.htm [recoveredscience.com]
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-536X.1986.tb01024.x/abstract [wiley.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 20 2017, @09:47PM (1 child)
That's a good analysis, but remember that other western countries (mainly western Europe, plus places like Aus/NZ, Japan, and even Hispanic nations in Latin America, etc.) also have very similar medical systems with a lot of sharing between them, but the circumcision thing is mainly American. So why did America get stuck on it, but no one else did?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday April 20 2017, @10:44PM
It seems to be an English-language thing, likely because most of the doctors promoting the early theories spoke and wrote in English. The UK, Australia, etc. had high rates too. According to this [wikipedia.org], a 2005 poll in Australia had 58% of males saying they were circumcised. (There's a marked decline in circumcision for infants, but traditionally it was much higher.) And there are countries (e.g., South Korea) which have a high rate of circumcision solely due to contact and influence of Americans.
Apparently the UK had a high rate of circumcision too until the late 1940s, when a combination of a prominent article pointing out the flawed science and the founding of the new National Health Service (which refused to include it in its list of covered services) caused its incidence to drop dramatically. Canada had the same trend, where rates were high until the 1970s or so, and then provinces started dropping coverage for the procedure (unless medically necessary), so its use has been declining there significantly too.
Basically, it's mostly an English language thing within medicine. And apparently Americans keep doing it because insurance covers it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 20 2017, @06:26PM
It's illegal, and determined to be a mutilation, under international and national law even to prick with a pin the labia of a minor female; yet, male circumcision removes upwards of 50% of a boy's penis skin, much of which is specialized to providing both protection of and sexual pleasure for the sex organ.
Yes, welcome to Christian Sharia Law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @03:41PM (1 child)
Never forget that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the organization that believes they have the right to violently impose choices about your body, wants to bring the USA to Egypt's level [psychologytoday.com].
That's what I could find with a quick search. In 2010, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended routine female genital mutilation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @03:54AM
In 2017, the World Academy of Soylentils recommends routine Pediatric mutilation doctor throat mutilation. No complaints has been filed by any doctor, though they have not payed the medical bill. Why that is so we are currently investigating.
:p
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @03:48PM (20 children)
Just wanted to point out that (male) circumcision and female genital mutilation are not at all comparable. The male procedure is but a little snip while the female operation is complete butchery. The difference is like between common flu and ebola.
Read and vomit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @03:56PM (18 children)
As the other AC pointed out, female genital mutilation includes pricking a girl's labia with a pin to draw a drop of blood. Boo Hoo.
In contrast, even the most mild form of male circumcision destroys specialized sexual structures, and greatly diminishes (and often destroys) an entire mechanical aspect of the penis; male circumcision removes a proportionally huge swath of tissue from the penis, what becomes upwards of 15 square inches in the adult (I don't know about you, but my penis has gotten larger since I was an a child, let alone an infant).
Male circumcision is disgusting—and it's often far more disgusting than the little nip of the clitoral hood that is performed on girls; in Egypt, female circumcision is performed by females, for females, on females.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday April 20 2017, @04:40PM (6 children)
The way you're writing that implies that female genital mutilation is more acceptable. I strongly disagree. Neither is acceptable, just like removing an arm is unacceptable, and removing a leg is unacceptable.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @04:50PM (5 children)
I won't sit here and let you fools try to say "Hey, but wait, like, the womenfolk have it much worse!" It's just not true. IT'S JUST NOT TRUE.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday April 20 2017, @08:07PM
Which I believe is what I said - removing an arm is no more (or less) acceptable than removing a leg
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @09:01PM (3 children)
Log in please, we'd like to see who has the massive persecuted white male complex.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday April 20 2017, @09:39PM (2 children)
Can't claim GP comment as mine but frankly fuck you. How the fuck is a pin prick worse than amputating an entire organ?
Oh, oh, oh, a clitoris that's forced to be an external organ is just soooooo awful! It's sooooooo awful! A Hunny got hurt!
Because the glans is a totally different organ that god meant to be an external organ, just he was drunk a put a clitoral hood, er, foreskin over it by accident, right?
Intact bodies are something only women deserve? Fuck you.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 20 2017, @11:38PM
This coming from an MtF is hilarious.
So, how about this?: NO ONE HARMS OUR BABIES' GENITALIA, MALE OR FEMALE. Sounds weird coming from a lesbian feminist, maybe? I don't care. All our babies are precious and harming any of them for any superstitious reason is societal insanity. We're failing our boys, too, as a society.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @03:36AM
Weird weird weeeird response. Why can't we just say that genital mutilation is wrong whether male or female? As an intact male I can tell you that the foreskin is way less sensitive than the head, and I don't have a clitoris so I can't comment but being a major erogenous zone I would expect even minor pinprick could be quite painful. Also, as an intact male I can tell you that when the head is exposed it can be VERY sensitive. So I imagine a clitoris is the same way and once it is exposed it probably takes a while for any contact to stop hurting.
You are way out there Kurenai, I've seen you get angry at people with little provocation, but to take what I said as condemning only female mutilation? You should really work on your reactionary behavior, if you're doing it online to this degree it probably comes out in real life as well and it is not ok.
My more cynical side imagines that you are a fictional persona used to troll liberals by being an "untouchable" that can spout hatred that liberals (or whatever) won't push back against. Well, either way, FUCK YOU for trying to project that bullshit on to me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday April 20 2017, @06:33PM (7 children)
> As the other AC pointed out, female genital mutilation includes pricking a girl's labia with a pin to draw a drop of blood.
Did you read that wikipedia page?
There are multiple FGM types. The worst, which are very common include cutting off the labia and clitoris.
Male circumcision is barbaric, but they cut the skin only, not the actual penis.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday April 20 2017, @07:33PM (6 children)
The worst, which are very common include cutting off the labia and clitoris.
You're confused by feminist propaganda. Besides that one incident with, who was it, Boko Haram? a while back in Africa, citation or it didn't happen.
What can and does happen is that a clitoral cut becomes infected, necessitating the removal of additional tissue. That was the reasoning behind the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2010 recommendation that US hospitals should begin performing clitoral slicing/pin-prick. It was meant as a harm-reduction measure.
Feminists have hopelessly fucked this issue up. They tell lies about female circumcision to activate your instincts to protect the Hunnies, and they act like male circumcision is not only risk-free but necessary to prevent cervical cancer (again, protect the Hunnies because males are nothing more than sexual objects even as infants).
You know what, though? Not a single goddamned feminist knows what it's like to live with a fucked up circumcision. There are males born right here in West who have lost their entire reproductive system because of circumcision. Cock, balls, whole nine yards. Went in for a "snip," left as a eunuch.
But hey, if somebody fucks up your circumcision enough, I hear they'll let you into the womyn-born-womyn gender caste [latimes.com].
R.I.P. David Reimer, a victim of male genital mutilation in a horrifying way that somebody cisgendered cannot even begin to imagine.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday April 20 2017, @07:45PM (3 children)
> You're confused by feminist propaganda.
Besides Wikipedia, I do indeed reserve my FGM-porn intake exclusively from official feminist agencies based in countries ruled by rabid feminist women:
For example: http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/issues/fgm.html [aljazeera.com]
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday April 20 2017, @09:29PM (2 children)
Kenya, that must be the one.
Fuck you, you motherfucking feminist shitstain. You have NO RIGHT TO MY BODY. GOT IT? YOU HAVE NO GODDAMNED RIGHT TO CONTROL MY BODY.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday April 20 2017, @11:59PM
Feminists are apposed to male circumcision as well:
CIRCUMCISION IS A FEMINIST ISSUE…AND SO IS HOW WE TALK ABOUT IT [feministing.com]
Circumcision Is a Feminist Issue (And Here Are 5 Reasons Not to Do It to Your Child) [everydayfeminism.com]
MALE CIRCUMCISION IS A FEMINIST ISSUE TOO [hystericalfeminisms.com]
Male circumcision is a feminist issue [circinfo.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @03:46AM
What in the ever loving hell are you talking about? You're getting all mad about male circumcision, which everyone keeps saying is wrong, and then you go off about a "no right to my body"??
Can you drop this massive angry reaction and try explaining things a little more clearly? I commented above about you perhaps being a shill, and this weird anger just makes that feel more likely as if you're not just a way to vent anger but also a way to promote the caricature of the insanely angry "SJW".
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday April 21 2017, @02:42PM (1 child)
This got me thinking... why-oh-why those emails in my spam folder advertise only 12 inches of reproductive system if 9 yards are the norm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 21 2017, @04:49PM
Your email hasn't been enlaaarged yet!
Please type in your credit card number, social security, all STDs etc. And it will be fixed, we promise. ;)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 20 2017, @08:34PM (2 children)
As the other AC pointed out, female genital mutilation includes pricking a girl's labia with a pin to draw a drop of blood. Boo Hoo.
And it includes other things far more destructive (such as type III "infibulation" which has been practiced [who.int] on over 8 million women).
what becomes upwards of 15 square inches in the adult
So it is true that they aren't snipping 15 square inches of skin.
I find it interesting that you can't protest male circumcision without exaggerating male circumcision and trivializing female circumcision. For the record, I used to favor male circumcision, but wouldn't now. But it's ridiculous how exaggerated the argument provided here is. I won't respect your pain or concern more just because you're dismissing other peoples' pain.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday April 20 2017, @09:34PM (1 child)
Amazing you don't find it interesting the mental contortions feminists go through to minimize ritual infant sexual objectification.
Let me guess, fuck the victims of male circumcision, huh? Somebody's dick gets burned off by a laser scalpel, and it's just lol! to you. Less competition for the Hunnies, right?
So why the fuck should you listen to feminists about this? The feminist argument consists solely of dismissing other people's pain. But it's ok with you to dismiss another man's pain or complete loss of reproductive capability because that's just more Hunnies for you, right?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 21 2017, @12:10AM
Feminists are opposed to male circumcision. [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 20 2017, @04:16PM
Get your head out of your ass. 15 square inches of adult skin is not a "little snip." A fucking pinprick is not "complete butchery."