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Cultural evolution: Evolution of female genital cutting

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 1, Article number: 0079 (2017) Cite this article

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Female genital cutting in five West African nations is frequency-dependent and is associated with higher reproductive success among ethnicities in which cutting predominates, a fitness advantage that may outweigh its costs to physical and psychological health.

Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), or female ‘circumcision’, describes a suite of procedures to alter the external female genitalia for non-medical purposes. The international community, including UNICEF and WHO, considers FGC a violation of girls' health and human rights. Despite decades of efforts to eliminate FGC, the practice persists in many communities, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. Scholars have offered many explanations for FGC's apparent intractability, including some that draw on evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour. In this issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution, Howard and Gibson1 provide evidence that FGC in West Africa is indeed consistent with cultural evolution: girls' families seem to be adopting the practice that predominates in the mother's ethnic group. Moreover, FGC seems to increase women's reproductive success, but only when cut women are in the majority. These findings have tremendous implications for scholars of FGC and human evolution, as well as interventions aimed at ending the practice.

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  1. Katherine Wander is at Binghamton University (SUNY) PO Box 6000 Binghamton, New York 13902-6000, USA.,

    Katherine Wander

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  1. Katherine Wander
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Correspondence to Katherine Wander.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Wander, K. Cultural evolution: Evolution of female genital cutting. Nat Ecol Evol 1, 0079 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0079

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0079

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