Breast Ironing?!

[Acinonyx]

Okay, don't watch it if you're overly empathetic or faint of heart, etc.


From Wikipedia:

Breast ironing is the pounding and massaging of a pubescent girl's breasts using heated objects, in an attempt to make them stop developing or disappear.[1][2] It is typically carried out by the girl's mother in an attempt to protect the girl from sexual harassment and rape,[2] to prevent early pregnancy that would tarnish the family name,[3] or to allow the girl to pursue education rather than be forced into early marriage.[3][1] It is mostly practiced in parts of Cameroon, where boys and men may think girls whose breasts have begun to grow are ripe for sex.[1] The most widely used implement for breast ironing is a wooden pestle normally used for pounding tubers; other tools used include bananas, coconut shells,[1] grinding stones, ladles, spatulas,[3] and hammers heated over coals.[4]

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

What really got to me was the terrified look of the girl when her mother got out her breast ironing stones and how little it seemed to actually affect the mother other than saying that her kid usually cries when she does that.


The only ones speaking up are a non-governmental organization (see Wikipedia), though you can be punished if a doctor determines that damage has been caused to the breasts, IF it is reported within a few months.


[via Pharyngula]

[Lithos]

Yeah, body modification attempts without permission are not nice, but shit like that is still popular. Circumcision is still popular too, even in many superficially civilized places. At very least, that thing probably does not actually work and if officials are starting to take note of it, maybe the habit dies out.

[Oniya]

Haven't these people heard of an Ace bandage?  Not to be flippant, but the idea of a woman 'binding her breasts' to appear more mannish dates back at least to Han dynasty China (which wasn't known for being particularly female-friendly) with the original legend of Mulan.  No, it's not that comfortable, but I bet it causes less physical trauma than that.

(Although the idea of bananas, heated or otherwise,  being used for trying to 'iron' anything strikes me as an exercise in futility to begin with.)

[cassia]

If the practice is widespread enough to be important to international society, then it's a symptom of a much bigger problem. I think that is obvious from the reasons given. Attempts to ban it without addressing the deeper issues will either fail or place individuals in more danger. It would take a lot more to encourage large groups to delay marriages until puberty is mostly complete and to make rape a rare crime committed only by deranged people who would then be ostracized. However, those measures would be necessary to truly improve victims' lives.

[SinsOfEden]

   Myeh!                    O____________O;;;

[Acinonyx]

Cassia, I think this may not necessarily be about rape, but about rape and consensual sex. Or maybe a lack of sex education. But that of course doesn't change what you say, namely, that there are deeper problems that need to be solved to stop such practices.

[Aviva]

From viewing the video it comes across as a age old practice that may have worked along time ago but though it appears to not too any longer it is still practiced perhaps partly due to it having become a mental preventative. It may make the parents feel they are protecting their daughters though personally I do not understand why in that way myself.

As Oniya said tehre are multiple ways that have the same effect but minus the physical/mental and emotional destruction this way could have.