“FGM” vs. female “cosmetic” surgeries: why do they continue to be treated separately?

In this article, I argue that the moral and legal distinction between “female genital cutting” and “female genital cosmetic surgeries” cannot be maintained without recourse to racist distinctions between the consent capacities of white women and women of colour. The physical procedures involved in these surgeries have significant overlap, as do their motivations, yet they are treated differently in everyday discourse and the law. This paper lays bare this double standard and presents and interrogates some of the reasons commonly given to justify their separate treatment. It concludes with the recommendation that the distinction be dropped in favour of more consistent consent-based stance, which avoids the racism and ethnocentrism that underwrites the present regime. According to this position, the only defensible moral and legal distinction is between those who can consent to these procedures, and those who cannot.