A special target group: Men
Nearly all FGM-Surveys deal with women – naturally you might say. However, men are also affected by FGM – at least indirectly. They can influence decisions in the family and they can be a decisive factor in public debate. Therefore, it would be very interesting to know what they think.
If you only want to find out how widespread FGM is, it is sufficient to only ask women. They usually know better than men. Often FGM is strictly a women’s business, and often the grandmothers, not even the mothers have the role of decision maker when it comes to FGM. However, studies have shown that men do have an influence even if they think they don’t: If a mother takes the decision not to mutilate her daughter in a community where it is usually done, this decision is almost always supported by the father. In other words: It seems that mother and father must take an active decision together if FGM should stop.
In short: If you want to know what the motivations are and the general attitude towards the practice it is good to know the opinion of men and women. Therefore we have adjusted the basic questionnaire for men and added some questions about motivations.
No, men do not automatically support FGM: It seems that there is a rising consciousness that FGM has a negative effect on marital sexual relations. Yet, there is also the opposite opinion: that FGM is improving sex life! Which opinion is dominant among the men of a community undoubtedly has large implications for the success of campaigns. For the future campaigning against FGM , men could be a very important group to address.
So try it with men also! Maybe your activist group is made up of women and men? It might be difficult for the men to address women about FGM, so they can ask the men.
Questions
Open Questionnaire for Men. The questionnaire for men targets mainly two points:
- Are men a part of the whole FGM-procedure, what do they know, have they any saying?
- What is their attitude towards FGM, especially in regard to sexuality
Next
Once you adjusted your questionnaire for men to your setting, read how to conduct the interviews in the section going to the field.
Background: What we know about men and FGM so far
Men were just discovered recently as an interesting object of inquiry concerning FGM. Some studies including men started to show irritating and surprising results: in many communities, especially outside Africa, men – fathers! – are not aware of their daughter being mutilated or they say they know it is done but have no influence on it.