Effect of Desert Flower

I am in one of my self righteous, idealistic phases again.... and am constantly pondering over ways in which to try to change the world. Normally these phases come and go very quickly (even before i start writing a blog over it.) This one has however continued for a relatively longer period ( 5.25 days to be exact). Let me try to explain what triggered it off..

Recently i happened to watch this movie called "desert flower" . Its about this girl from an african country who goes on to become a vogue magazine cover girl. The movie was good in a very disturbing way. It basically dealt with the issue of female circumcision or FGM ( female genital mutilation). According to the movie this horrendous practice is compulsory for the female members of that tribe and is responsible for the untimely death of approximately 1/3rd of them. Extremely shocked to know this, and being the curious girl that i am... i immediately googled it up and to my surprise it was true. Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting for more details. For a few hours i was in this strange trance like disturbed state as i struggled to comprehend the amazingly cruel things which people do to each other... It was not the first time that i heard of such atrocities against women and it definitely would not be the last. However Circumcision like honour killings had a peculiar charecteristic... it was done by the victim's own family members... or people who sincerely believed that they were doing it for the better future life of their family. A better life in terms of a respectable standing in their society and adherance to the norms which rule their collective lives. The norms which dictate that a woman's "purity" be considered more precious than her life. Purity in this case means "absence of premarital sex". When i thought of this more deeply i realized the origin of almost all such practices like Sati, honor killings, rape etc stem from the supposed premium placed on the female's virginity. It is not the individual solutions to these specific crimes that have to be tackled but this belief that the moment a woman has sex( even if it is against her will) before/ outside her marriage her worth as a human being diminishes to an extent that her own family members think of destroying her.