A qualitative metasynthesis on the sexual health of women who have undergone female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) living in western countries
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) or circumcision can have lasting consequences on survivors’ sexual health and is an important public health issue in Western countries due to migration. While some quantitative reviews have examined the psychosexual consequences of FGM/C, survivors’ perspectives remain understudied. We aim to synthesize existing qualitative data on the experiences of women who have undergone FGM/C and who live in Western countries, focusing on their perspectives regarding sexual health. A systematic search was performed in six databases to identify relevant qualitative or mixed-method empirical articles that pertain to sexual health-related matters and provide direct quotations from adult participants who have undergone FGM/C and who live in Western countries. Data was thematically synthesized using QSR’s Nvivo14. We synthesized data from 27 articles and identified three overarching themes related to the control of women’s bodies and sexuality:1) Rigid sexual and gender norms as obstacles to sexual fulfillment, 2) FGM/C as both creator and annihilator of sexual identity and feeling, 3) The hegemony of the taboo related to FGM/C and sexuality leading to the sexual subjugation of women. This study identified macro (e.g., sexual and gender norms, roles, diktats) and micro-level factors (e.g., FGM/C itself, sexual expectations) influencing the sexual health of women who have undergone FGM/C and who live in Western countries. Future research, health promotion initiatives, and psychosexual care should consider the various dimensions of sexuality when addressing FGM/C survivors’ sexual health. • FGM/C and its impacts on sexual health are experienced well beyond the physical aspects of sexuality; • Factors influencing the sexual health of FGM/C survivors are multifaceted; • Control is exerted over FGM/C survivors’ sexuality through micro and macro mechanisms, • FGM/C is situated within a continuum of violence and oppression, which impacts sexual health; • Sexual health is an integral component of the overall health of FGM/C survivors.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.054 | 0.018 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; both teacher heads agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".