Women's Breasts Ironed in Cameroon

I was alerted to this article, Cameroon girls battle 'breast ironing', and it just makes me want to just die. I am livid beyond words and I am just so sick to my stomache yet again. It seems every time I turn on the news or search the blogosphere, I become more and more aware of how much I want to curl under a rock and sob. Yet I don't. I am here--blogging because I have so much anger and I am unable at this point to go where I am being called to...places like Cameroon.

"A nationwide campaign is under way in Cameroon to discourage the widespread practice of "breast ironing". This involves pounding and massaging the developing breasts of young girls with hot objects to try to make them disappear."

"Statistics show that 26% of Cameroonian girls at puberty undergo it, as many mothers believe it protects their daughters from the sexual advances of boys and men who think children are ripe for sex once their breasts begin to grow."

"The most widely used instrument to flatten the breasts is a wooden pestle, used for pounding tubers in the kitchen. Heated bananas and coconut shells are also used."

Student Geraldin Sirri recounted her painful experience. "My mother took a pestle, she warmed it well in the fire and then she used it to pound my breasts while I was lying down. She took the back of a coconut, warmed it in the fire and used it to iron the breasts. I was crying and trembling to escape but there was no way."





This picture shows common tools used to iron the breasts of young girls.





My question is: why is it ALWAYS women who physically and emotionally suffer and are punished because of the fear that they might have sex? Or G-d forbid--enjoy it.
Women are people. Women are people. Women are people.

Why is it always the woman who has her breasts pounded or her genitals sawed off? Why are we allowing this to happen to our women of the world? Why is it always women who must endure painful, excrutiating practices? Why do we constantly ignore the problem and attempt to maim the possible victim? Why, why, why? Why do we constantly ignore that women are being tortured because we impose morals onto them that we do not place onto men? Why do we do nothing to prevent women from having to live up to impossible standards?

Are men having their penises removed at puberty for fear they may have sex before school? How are we brutalizing the penis to make sure boys remain virgins until marriage? Do we cut the penis with razors? Do we poke balls with hot pokers? Do we pound balls to make sure they don't produce sperm, hence no impregnantion of whores?

I'm just rageous over this. I am tired of women being forced to lay down while their genitals are cut off. I am tired of women being blamed for shit they have no control over. I am tired of women being blamed for the patriarchy's ridiculous idea of what a woman should be. I am tired of hearing women tell the tales of being raped with knives. I am tired of reading about a 7 year old girl gang-raped repeatedly until she is ripped apart.

I am tired of it, I'm just so tired.