Student Response on Message Board: "The best answer I have heard is that humans rights must first be referenced in a cultural context, not handed down from "above" so to speak. A recent case we discussed was female genital modification. We know that this practice is painful and unpleasant for women in East Africa and other places it is practiced, but this practice is also about marriage and notions of cleanliness. We just can't walk in and say you're violating human rights. Particularly when many, many women want to have this done to their daughters so that they become marriageable and not seen as being unclean by others in the community."
We have definitely got an anthropologist with cultural relativity on his academic mind for sure.
1 comment:
Student Response on Message Board: "The best answer I have heard is that humans rights must first be referenced in a cultural context, not handed down from "above" so to speak. A recent case we discussed was female genital modification. We know that this practice is painful and unpleasant for women in East Africa and other places it is practiced, but this practice is also about marriage and notions of cleanliness. We just can't walk in and say you're violating human rights. Particularly when many, many women want to have this done to their daughters so that they become marriageable and not seen as being unclean by others in the community."
We have definitely got an anthropologist with cultural relativity on his academic mind for sure.
William
Post a Comment