Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women. - book reviews

African American Review, Fall, 1997 by Lovalerie King

Genitally mutilated girls are appropriately and literally located at the center of Warrior Marks. This part of the filming takes place during the girls' return to the village following their "kidnap" into torture two weeks before. The youngest in the group is a four-year-old named Mary, and hers is one of the most profoundly moving stories in the book. Observing Mary and the other recently circumcised girls during a celebration, Walker notes that their "silent, grave, stunned" eyes seemed to be asking, "Why is everyone else so happy?" The film is especially successful in presenting this image of stunned silence, as are the many illustrations included in the text.

The interview section of the book contains some extremely revealing interviews, as well as some which are less so. Interviewees include three members of Senegal's Commission for the Abolition of Sexual Mutilation (founded by Awa Thiam); Thiam; Efua Dorkenoo, director of an international activist and educational organization; Aminata Diop, who fled Mali to avoid mutilation and to seek asylum in France; Diop's lawyer, Linda Weil-Curiel, whose commitment to fighting against excision made her the almost natural choice to handle Diop's precedent-setting case; Dr. Henriette Kouyate, a gynecologist in Dakar who treats mutilated women and organizes retraining workshops with circumcisers; Baba Lee, an Islamic scholar who is "one of very few men who speak out against this practice publicly, at conferences and on radio programs"; little Mary's mother, who is, herself, a survivor of genital mutilation; and others whose stories add breadth and depth to the project. One circumciser (of little Mary's group), apparently attempting to maintain an air of mystery about the practice, asserts during her interview that none of the girls will divulge what they have undergone in any detail, even under threat of death. According to the authors, she seems surprised when, in response, Parmar and Walker share their knowledge of four types of female genital mutilation, from the simplest circumcision where only the hood of the clitoris is removed, to the most radical - infibulation or pharoanic - which - involves removal of not only the entire clitoris, but also the labia minora and majora and the stitching together of the sides of the vulva, leaving only a small opening.

Parmar actually experienced nightmares about being mutilated during the period of filming, but she is still able to express the feeling that "there is much joy in creating work that has been inspired by passion and a desire for freedom and justice." She says that, for her, "making a film is . . . a base that sustains a political vision for democratic representation and change." Again, her words connect her sense of mission and vision to Walker's expression that "you have to learn to find joy in the struggle itself. Otherwise you die on the vine." Whatever apparent differences exist in their approaches to this project are outweighed by the complementary factor. Walker and Parmar have produced a unique document that is multi-perspectival and grandly illuminating in ways that the film can not be because of medium and time constraints. Conversely, the film captures and transmits living, breathing images and represents ideas in ways that still photos intermingled with text can not. Like Walker and Parmar in this collaborative enterprise, the film and text exist in a complementary relationship. The two options create the possibility for a broader audience, which is, ultimately, the bottom line; for as Thiam observes, "You can go wherever you want - to America, France, India. . . . women on all five continents are always subordinate to men. The subordination we're speaking about exists everywhere." Exactly.