Response to Commentaries on “From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalism in the United States”

Abstract

The author responds to three commentaries on her essay “From the War on Terror to the Moral Crusade Against Female Genital Mutilation: Anti-Muslim Racism and Femonationalism in the United States,” published in this symposium. The response addresses three main arguments, namely, the need for a specific ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), the multiplicity of actors involved in the anti-FGM movement, and the problematic way in which words and numbers are used in the public sphere to depict FGM. The author concludes with a call to decolonize the anti-FGM debate and to reflect critically on the political context in which anti-FGM legislation takes place.