We are fashioned not by our genes, but by our environment - by the family and socio-historic conditions in which we evolve.
Michel OnfrayRead
How strange that excision – female circumcision, with several languages using the same term for both kinds of mutilation – of little girls should revolt the westerner but excite no disapproval when it is performed on little boys. Consensus on the point seems absolute. But ask your interlocutor to think about the validity of this surgical procedure, which consists of removing a healthy part of a nonconsenting child’s body on nonmedical grounds – the legal definition of… mutilation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the hypocrisy surrounding the societal perceptions of bodily mutilation based on gender.
Michel Onfray's quote critically examines the double standards in the discussion of bodily procedures that are considered mutilation. While female circumcision is widely condemned in Western societies, male circumcision often lacks the same scrutiny despite both practices involving the removal of healthy tissue from nonconsenting children. Onfray urges a reconsideration of the societal norms that allow for such disparities in moral outrage and legal definitions of harm.
Themes
MutilationCircumcisionDouble StandardsGenderHypocrisyConsent
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate on bodily autonomy and ethics, this quote can serve as a powerful point against gender-based double standards.
More from Michel Onfray
All quotes →Similar quotes
Truth has been relegated to subjectivity; beauty has been subjugated to the beholder; and as millions are idiotized night after night, a global commune has been constructed with the arts enjoying a totalitarian rule.
Ravi ZachariasRead
Preach Christ or nothing: don't dispute or discuss except with your eye on the cross.
Charles SpurgeonRead
I am God's vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.
Kanye WestRead
We haven't yet got eyes that can gaze into all the splendour that God has created, but we shall get them one day; and that will be the finest fairy tale of all, for we shall be in it ourselves.
Hans Christian AndersenRead
Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
When you open up to the ultimate, immediately it pours into you. You are no longer an ordinary human being - you have transcended. Your insight has become the insight of the whole existence. Now you are no longer separate - you have found your roots.
RajneeshRead