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In 2001 Abusharaf published a study that gathered interviews from Sudan during 1996 to 1998 that their questioned gender ideologies related to female circumcision and what they considered pure and feminine. The women Abusharaf interviewed provided their reasoning for circumcision "as an act that commemorates virtue and hallows morality,""a ritual contributing to the cultural construction of gender, womanhood, and 'appropriate' sexuality, a part of the process of achieving full personhood within (the) culture." Abusharaf notes that "the tenacity of this ritual cannot be understood in isolation from emotional and cognitive processes, kin and social relationships, accountability, morality, ideas about femininity and masculinity, or from the relations of power that prevail in the country," and that "female circumcision has no meaning apart from other dominant ideologies, and these ideologies in turn combine to shape common moralities and codes of ethics in the communities."

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Psychological consequences

In February 2010, a study by Pharos, a Dutch group which gathers information on health care for refugees and migrants, found that many women who have undergone FGM suffer psychiatric problems. This was the first study into the psychiatric and social complaints associated with female genital cutting. In the study 66 questioned Dutch African women, who had been subjected to the practice, were found to be "stressed, anxious and aggressive". It also found that they were more likely to have relational problems or in some cases had fears of establishing a relationship. According to the study, an estimated 50 women or girls are believed to undergo FGM every year in the Netherlands. The report was published to mark the International day against female genital mutilation.

A study by anthropologist Rogaia M. Abusharaf, found that "circumcision is seen as 'the machinery which liberates the female body from its masculine properties' and for the women she interviewed, it is a source of empowerment and strength".

In 1994, Sudanese surgeon Nahid Toubia reported that in her clinical experience, "many infibulated women have a syndrome of chronic anxiety and depression arising from worry over the state of their genitals, intractable dysmenorrhea, and the fear of infertility." Toubia also said that while a few cases of psychopathologic disorders directly attributable to FGM had been reported, for most women, "the psychological effects are often subtle and are buried in layers of denial and acceptance of social norms".

Amnesty International suggest that the trauma of the procedure may lead to more docile behaviour in women who had been subjected to the practice. They note that, although little scientific research has been done, anecdotal evidence indicates feelings of "anxiety, terror, humiliation and betrayal" in these women. However, they state that the "most important psychological effect on a woman who has survived is the feeling that she is acceptable to her society, having upheld the traditions of her culture and made herself eligible for marriage, often the only role available to her", postulating that women who refused might suffer psychological problems due to rejection by their community.

Other Stuff

A study by anthropologist Rogaia M. Abusharaf, found that "circumcision is seen as 'the machinery which liberates the female body from its masculine properties' and for the women she interviewed, it is a source of empowerment and strength".

This ethnographic study by a Sudanese anthropologist is essentially a work of contextualisation. It is an attempt to understand how female 'circumcision' is regarded within the communities in which it is practised - i.e. the perceptions and justifications held by the women who practice it on their daughters and advocate its practice for others. As the final sentence of the article makes clear, the goal was to better inform a successful campaign for its abolition. The first quote is taken out of context, from a section on prevalent cultural justifications for circumcision. The discussion actually focusses on the prevalent belief in the culture that women's natural bodies are 'revolting' and that uncircumcised female genitalia will grow to enormous proportions and resemble a penis. Without this context, the quoted phrase is completely misleading:

"One of the most prevalent cultural justifications for circumcision is the belief that female genitalia are ugly and misbegotten, and the clitoris “revolting.” If left unexcised, these women say, it can continue to grow and will ultimately “dangle” between a woman’s legs. Here the ritual enters the realm of the cosmetic: it is a repudiation of the otherwise loathsome appearance of female genitalia.9 This perception, as Sudanese women confirm, is not to be belittled. I was told by an older woman that the midwife who performs the surgery is often reminded by the kinswomen of the soon-to-be circumcised to sawihoo amalas wa samih zai dahar elhamama, meaning “make it smooth and beautiful like the back of a pigeon.” It could be argued that the ritual is not only a fastidious tactic in pursuit of an aesthetic, but also that it is related to the very process of the cultural construction of the body. From this point of view, circumcision is the machinery that liberates the female body from its masculine properties. This idea is related to the belief found in ancient Egyptian mythology that stresses the bisexuality of the gods. One of the women I interviewed, Saadia, aged sixty-two, told me that “circumcision is what makes one a woman.” Abusharaf 2001, pp122-123

The second quote is again taken out of context and therefore misrepresented. The discussion here is about one woman interviewed who is an advocate of FGM:

What Suaad’s narrative powerfully problematizes is the notion of sexual pleasure itself. Michel Foucault is correct to argue that there is no “pathol-ogy of pleasure,” no “abnormal pleasure” (qtd. in Halperin 93–94). The fact that circumcision reduces desire is not reflected in Suaad’s story. A similar observation was reported by Heidi Skramstad’s research among Gambian women who believed that genital cutting did not reduce their enjoyment of sexual intercourse. To Najat, “circumcision is a source of empowerment and strength.” One of Foucault’s most significant ideas is his conceptualization of power as neither an institution nor a structure but a “complex strategical situation,” a “multiplicity of force relations,” as simultaneously “intentional yet ‘nonsubjective’”. The question then becomes: how is power exercised? By what means? The following narrative suggests an answer to this question in the Sudanese context. Circumcision is believed to endow women with a remarkable ability to exert self-control and power, to take charge of their “natural” desires and to display restraint over their sexuality. Self-mastery, a disposition seen as a virtue and as one promoted through genital surgery, is Najat’s reason for her undeviating support of pharaonic circumcision. Infibulated women, she maintains, are able to drive hard bargains and have a say in household politics and decision-making processes. Their controlled sexuality allows them to achieve these goals in the face of scarce resources, hardship, and constrained socioeconomic circumstances. This is how women exercise power not only over their sexuality, but also over their spouses. Abusharaf 2001, pp128-129

Alternative views about 'circumcision' are held by Sudanese women interviewed, and acknowledged by them to exist in their culture. One of the women interviewed says that the practice is considered painful and violent although she advocates it because a narrow vagina prolongs intercourse. Here is another woman's view:

My family and my in-laws are in favor of pharaonic circumcision because it is considered a beautiful circumcision. I am not going to have pharaonic done to my daughters, so I will just lie to them and say that I did. I think pharaonic is very cruel. I don’t say that to the people in the family because they could circumcise my daughters without my knowledge, or they might insist on it. Right now, I say yes pharaonic is good, so that I can prevent it from happening to my daughters. If I do sunna , I think that will be enough for the girls. The most important reason for me to circumcise my daughters is to keep them clean. p126

There is no conclusion to the study, half of which is devoted to a historical review and half of which is devoted to fieldwork. This is the end of the article:

Almost eighty years ago, Franz Boas, the founding father of American anthropology, observed that when a dominant way of thinking pervades all of cultural life, it often persists over long periods, surviving changes to the ways people live. Certainly, genital excision practices in the township of Douroshab thrive in spite of sweeping transformations in Sudanese society, including the “modernization” and Islamization of the country. The case of Douroshab suggests that the tenacity of this ritual cannot be understood in isolation from emotional and cognitive processes, kin and social relationships, accountability, morality, ideas about femininity and masculinity, or from the relations of power that prevail in the community. For example, as we have seen from the preced-ing narratives, in Douroshab, women’s rationale for the continuation of circumcision is articulated in terms of its symbolism as an act that com-memorates virtue and hallows morality. Female circumcision is a ritual contributing to the cultural construction of gender, womanhood, and “appropriate” sexuality, a part of the process of achieving full personhood within this culture. Simply stated, female circumcision has no meaning apart from other dominant ideologies, and these ideologies in turn combine to shape common moralities and codes of ethics in the communities in which circumcision is practiced. As political theorist Mona Abul Fadl argues (“Revisiting”), it neither strains our credulity nor does it tax our imaginations to acknowledge that every aspect of life is connected to every other, and that, somehow, reality is a seamless web out of which all life proceeds. These narratives, therefore, ought to be understood in this spirit. As a ritual device, circumcision exemplifies a distinctive body of teachings; it is an “ontological mutation in existential conditions” (Auge 61) that gives the circumcised common recognition of a set of changing relationships within her community. Understood as a ritual, the prac-tice is not seen by the people in Douroshab Township as a violation of human rights. Although most of the female interviewees acknowledged the extreme nature of the practice, they made no connection between its “violence” and a human rights violation. For example, women admit that circumcision has caused them a tremendous number of ailments, but because it is a cultural practice, the practitioners are not accused of violating their children’s rights. Though painful and drastic, it is by no means seen as contravention or violation. On the contrary, in Douroshab terms, circumcision has many benefi ts for girls and women. Abdulahi An-Na’im argues persuasively that “unless interna-tional human rights have suffi cient legitimacy w ithin particular cultures and traditions, their implementation will be thwarted, particularly at the domestic level, but also at the regional and international levels” (172–73). Without such legitimacy, it is almost impossible to improve the status of women through the law or any other agent of social change. Indeed, the very use of law in many African societies requires a prior conviction that the right to be protected is inalienable. The question then becomes how human rights can be legitimized in contexts within which violations take place. If such legitimacy does not already exist, and the whole community believes in the virtue of a practice like female circumcision, who is left to implement the law? Within communities that adhere to circumcision, this tradition is perceived as a cultural right and not as a breach of rights.The narratives of Douroshab women not only convey the mean-ings of circumcision but are couched in powerful terms that reveal how women construct multiple identities in an ever-changing social world. Genital modification is not only important in producing “socially informed bodies,” but as a vehicle for creating meanings “that bound and represent the socialized self by mediating its relations to the ambient social world” difference s 137(Terrence Turner 149). Attention to social reproduction is essential for understanding the politics and aesthetics embodied in the modification of women’s bodies. Further, as I have argued elsewhere (Abusharaf “Revis-iting”), elucidating women’s perspectives within societies rather than criminalizing them is not only a pressing political issue, but also the only strategy for the formulation of a sound anti-circumcision policy in the new millennium. pp135-137