Female Circumcision
In The Handmaid’s Tale, we see at least two characters, Emily and Moira, become “sterilized”, or have a forced female circumcision. This is gruesome mutilation of the female anatomy where the outer sexual organ is completely removed, making sex a painful experience for the rest of their lives.
Sadly, this has been happening to women for a very long time, and in some countries, it is a ritual act made to oppress women in every generation. In other places, it is used as punishment. In some African tribes, every single girl is forced to have a female circumcision. In many cases, mothers and grandmothers are doing this to their own daughters, even though they understand how painful the procedure actually is. They have been brainwashed into believing that the female sex drive and that they are born with a “bug” that is making them “sick”.
While this was going on for centuries, the western world was not made aware of this tradition until the 1950s. Today, this is still a practice in 30 countries- 27 of which are located in Africa. It also happens in Indonesia, Kurdistan, and Yemen.