It Was Done To Me: Grocery Store Awareness Raising

By Michael Dulin

Yesterday at the grocery store a woman's voice from behind me said, "It's terrible that they do that to women..."

I turned.

She read the front of my T-shirt. "Oh, my God..." she said. She touched me on the shoulder, and then as if apologizing to me, she said, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." There was such sadness in her eyes. In that brief encounter, without argument or excuses, she simply understood. Her empathy was invoked because a Latin word wasn't encouraging her prejudice.

The words we use make a difference. This woman will never disregard what adults are doing to the bodies of children because she saw a man wearing a T-shirt, man who had the guts to call it what it is: Genital Mutilation and to say it was DONE to ME.

"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Also by Dulin:

Stop using the Latin word for Genital Mutilation

Genital Mutilation Doesn't Only Happen to Women

Bearing Silent Witness in Boston

Speak Truth

Circumcised? Get over it!

i will not assume

Men Speak

*******

Bearing Silent Witness in Boston: Male Genital Mutilation

By Michael Dulin

This past week I spent a few days in Boston with my friend Edward Barron. We bore silent witness to the harm of Child Genital Mutilation, exposing the truth to thousands and thousands of people. Not a single person made any excuses, or challenged our message. A man dressed in scrubs stopped us on the street to say he agreed with us, "It is Genital Mutilation." A woman even volunteered on her own, "isn't only done to females..."

Nothing had to be explained, argued, or debated because the truth speaks for itself.

Don't give mutilators a word to hide behind. Maiming her healthy genitalia is called Female Genital Mutilation, because isn't that exactly what it is? Maiming his healthy genitalia is called Male Genital Mutilations, because isn't that exactly what it is? You cannot hide behind a word in the Bible or a medical text book when what you do is called exactly what it is - genital mutilation.


Also by Dulin:

Stop using the Latin word for Genital Mutilation

Genital Mutilation Doesn't Only Happen to Women

Speak Truth

Circumcised? Get over it!

i will not assume

Men Speak

*******