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The practice of female genital cutting has been surrounded by controversy ever since Europeans set foot on the African continent. Inscribing themselves into the long tradition of covering up the imperial ambitions in rhetoric of women’s liberation (Abu-Lughod, 2002; Kumar, 2008), Western colonizers proclaimed the practice as a proof of barbarism and carried out campaigns to prohibit it, as part of their plan to “civilize” Africans. In the 20th century, it was Western feminists and human rights activists who embraced the issue. Up to date, the practice represents a much contested issue, and journalists are also joining in the fight against it.
In the Western media, the issue has drawn much attention, but unsurprisingly has been mostly portrayed in ethnocentric terms that validate colonial clichés and reaffirm the West’s intentions to “help” African women (Grise, 2001; Walley, 1997). This study examines two examples of advocacy journalism related to female genital cutting in the New York Times. Advocacy journalism is defined as an individual writer’s publicly acknowledged or evident engagement with a particular human rights issue that they advocate for in their writings for prolonged periods of time. Through cultural studies perspective grounded in feminist analysis, the study examines how individual writers’ benevolent intentions shape the narratives produced and affect human rights efforts to fight against the practice.
The study finds that when evaluated from the perspective of colonial discourses, the narratives largely re-enact colonial clichés and power dynamics, casting African women in less than favorable light. Moreover, the actual consequences of such advocacy journalism on the advancement of human rights issues remain difficult to determine. The study ends with some suggestions about how journalist could contribute to human rights discourses in ethical and compelling ways.