Dena S. Davis, Lehigh's first Presidential Endowed Chair in Health in the social sciences and humanities spoke on Tuesday at STEPS and asked students to "think outside of our preconceived notions" as she spoke about the issues of genital alteration in the United States in her lecture called, "Cutting to the Core: Male and Female Genital Alteration".

One of the students attending the lecture, a female from the class of 2012, explained that she chose to attend for various reasons.

Davis began her discussion with more general information in regards to the global issue of male and female genital alteration. Davis said that the main reasons genital mutilation occurs around the world were “religion, custom, group cohesion, family pressure and economic concerns.”

Davis also let students know that 4 million to 5 million young girls are subjected to some form of genital cutting around the world.

However, more specifically within the United States, female genital alteration was made illegal by a federal law in 1997.

For males, Davis said, “there is absolutely no law against circumcision or who can do it.” Female minors are therefore given protections by the law while male minors are not.

Male circumcision seemed to begin as a religious practice among the Jewish and Muslim religions, which has further escalated in the United States to be an overlooked practice that has turned into the norm. That is exactly what Davis finds truly disturbing. She said,

Therefore the issue lies in why male circumcision is happening to half of the boys in the United States and why it is occurring even when there has been no concrete health benefits linked to the procedure and insurance companies are refusing to cover it because it has been deemed unnecessary.

The majority of Americans completely overlook this procedure and it is not at the forefront of cultural debates. One of the main reasons behind this seems to be the lack of discussion on the topic and the fact that most people haven’t realized that is actually an issue that is toying with human/individual rights.

Professor Beth Dolan, the Director of Health, Medicine and Society spoke of why she chose to have Davis speak on this subject and said, "College is an excellent place to expose yourself to ideas and cultures that you don't know very much about—exactly why this type of talk is so important. I hope students will come away from the talk with a sense of how to reason through a challenging ethical issue."

Story by Brown and White news writer Laura Belair, '13