Zimbabwean senator proposes ending AIDS crisis by mutilating women and preventing them from bathing

A Zimbabwean senator named Morgan Femai from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has given a bizarre, misogynist speech at an African HIV/AIDS conference in which he proposes that his county's AIDS health emergency can be solved by mandating that women must be ugly and unbathed, and be subject to genital mutilation. He also gave an interview in which he stated that "Women have got more moisture in their organs as compared to men so there is need to research on how to deal with that moisture because it is conducive for bacteria breeding. There should be a way to suck out that moisture."

“What I propose it that the government should come up with a law that compels women to have their heads clean-shaven like what the Apostolic sects do,” said Femai, when speaking to a parliamentary HIV awareness workshop in the central city of Kadoma on Friday, according to Nehanda Radio.
“They should also not bath because that is what has caused all these problems,” said Femai, who added that if women dressed in shabby clothes and were uglier, then men would not drawn to have sex with them.
Femai also proposed that Zimbabwean women should be circumsized.

How to reduce HIV in Zimbabwe? Make women uglier. (via Skepchick)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: christ what an asshole • gender • health • woo • zimbabwe

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Judas Peckerwood

Well, he does clearly have science on his side here.
- philllies
  
  Mystery science 2012 maybe.
  
  Is he a fundamentalist Baptist, or some other religion? Hope he is not a gynecologist. For that matter, I hope his doctorate is in folklore, rather than medicine. Or maybe this is what passes for Zimbabwean comedy/sarcasm.
http://twitter.com/mr_raccoon Jason

THAT’S NOT HOW AIDS WORK
- bcsizemo
  
  I’m not even sure he knows how men work…
  
  Implying men wouldn’t have sex with ugly stinky women who dress badly if they were the only women around….is he serious?
  - http://twitter.com/mr_raccoon Jason
    
    It’s like he never heard of ‘beer goggles’ before…
inkfumes

What I propose is that the government should come up with a law that compels people to know wtf they are talking about.
- http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
  
  And how would that get passed through Congress, exactly? ;)
  - digi_owl
    
    Lots and lots of the green stuff…
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=814695303 Angela Griffith
  
  Can I like this 10000 times, lol!! I am amazed that we still have such idiots in positions of power anywhere…………..but hey………….we have them here too! Read, know and vote people!!!
  - inkfumes
    
    Maybe we need to start a kickstarter campaign to launch a “truth in politics” law? Ive always thought there should be a law that makes it illegal to deliberately lie, misinform or just talk out of your ass for politicians.
voiceinthedistance

Hmmm. I wonder if the idea of cutting off all men’s penises ever occurred to Mr. Femai. It would seem to be a more sure fire approach to solving the problem troubling him. Of course, there’s still the damned moisture problem. I’ve got no suggestions as to how to suck out all that moisture.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  I don’t know the answer to all that but cutting off his genitals is certainly worth it as a trial run.
  - ImmutableMichael
    
    I’d be prepared to give it a go in the name of science. If cutting off his genitals is what it takes, then I am prepared to make that sacrifice. I regret only that I have only one set of Senator Femai’s genitals to give.
http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie

There’s waaaay more moisture inside that skull of his.

Probably fungi too.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  Good luck finding a heart though.
  - http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
    
    Right on.
    
    I don’t want my elected leaders to be rocket scientists. I just want them to empathize with the less favored of their constituents.
    - Jonathan Roberts
      
      I have no problem with my elected leaders not being experts in climate science, gynecology, medicine etc., I’d just rather they didn’t think they were.
      - ocker3
        
        This smacks of poorly chosen advisors/lobbyists leading a candidate with little background knowledge down the garden path. And it’s at least partly his fault because knowing whom to trust and having a strong bullshit filter are two key skills in a politician.
Chuck

“Some men from America gave me money to say that. They claimed that news of my speech would make them sound sane in comparison. “
- http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
  
  It sounds like the Ricketts Plan has found their highly literate black man to go up against the metrosexual Abe Lincoln!
Ashley Yakeley

“Sithembile Mlotshwa, an MDC senator from Matobo, recently said people should have sex once a month and that men should be injected with drugs that reduce their libido, reported All Africa. She also called for prisoners to be given sex toys to satisfy their sexual needs.”

Why doesn’t anyone pick on their own gender?
- Ashley Yakeley
  
  though, props for the prisoner sex toys idea.
- http://about.me/rosemwelch Rose M. Welch
  
  If you added ‘who can’t control themselves’ in between ‘men’ and ‘should’, I would think that this statement is absolutely sane and logical.
snagglepuss

Rick Santorum’s Brother By Another Mother.

Holy FUCK, this nutcase would fit right in with American fundaloonies. Especially the “It’s ALWAYS the WOMAN’S fault !! They’re all diseased SLUTS !!” attitude.

Quick, somebody alert the US State Department and tell them to NOT allow this asshole to enter the country at the invitation of the GOP, to be a Guest Speaker at a Family First rally.
TooGoodToCheck

Wait, wait, we don’t need mutilation. We just need a 100 mile electrified fence. . .
- Jonathan Roberts
  
  I think loonies like him could fit in a much smaller enclosure.
  - renke
    
    lemme see – circle with 100 miles circumference, about 10 new loonies per day based on boingboing posts.
    
    when we allow the population density of New York City the enclosure is adequate for nearly 6 millenia.
Tommy Timefishblue

So what he’s saying is that he wants to sap all of our precious, bodily fluids?
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  Africa needs fluoridation!
http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland

I think it’s high time we start dealing with this moist women issue. Females have been humid for far too long, and we as a society must work to dry them up.

The only logical course of action is to move all persons testing gyno-positive to a vast salt flat and feed them nothing but crackers and vermouth.

God bless you, Senator Femai, for showing us the path to arid vaginobeasts!
- bcsizemo
  
  Sounds like I should start hording lube to sell on the black market.
  
  -pun not intended, seriously!
  - http://twitter.com/ChristineKeele1 Christine Keeler
    
    I think that’s probably racist. Change the market to eBay or something.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000323783337 Toni Pegoda Whalen

I believe his “women are moist and therefore dirty/diseased” belief may come from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_sex
- zarray
  
  (ಠ益ಠ)
  
  WHY IS THIS A THING?
  - ocker3
    
    Some cultures have weird habits, some of which have worse impacts on their citizens than others. Douching for example is a Really Bad thing (is there in fact a time when it isn’t??), but you can still probably buy a kit really easily.
- marilove
  
  The best part about this practice being that a dry vagina will likely result in a lot, lot more irritation during sex, which could include lots of tiny little cuts, making the spread of HIV even easier. YAY!
- CH
  
  Ouch, ouch, ouch! The things you learn on BoingBoing…
  Yeah, I should not be surprised. And “wet” women being unchaste. Figures. If women actually enjoy sex they must be wh*res… can’t have that, can we?
- jennix
  
  … thanks a lot. Now i have to figure out how to wash my brain out with soap.
abstract_reg

Can’t we give him credit for having some understanding of the germ theory of disease? I mean it could be worse: he could be blaming the illness on a vengeful God angry for people having sex.
Wait, you’re telling me there are still people who say that?
- digi_owl
  
  Not only that, but they seem to hold a strong position within a big political party in a superpower…
- http://www.facebook.com/heather.cristofaro Heather Cristofaro
  
  He doesn’t even really have an understanding of germ theory in the slightest. HIV is a virus. Has nothing to do with bacteria/germs.
  - abstract_reg
    
    True enough, so he has a faulty understanding of germ theory as well. Guy can’t catch a break. (Except being elected into public office.)
That_Anonymous_Coward

1 – CHRIST WHAT AN ASSHOLE.
2 – How can someone like this get elected?! Is this not exactly the poster child we need to overcome the whole religious interference in teaching people how their bodies work and how disease is spread? Making statements like this show how misinformation breeds and runs rampant.
While I don’t think we have to force them to do it “our” way, I think we need to radically change course and stop this sort of insanity. Give people facts and knowledge not folklore and insanity.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Elected? It’s Zimbabwe. People vote for whomever Mugabe tells them to vote for. And if they don’t, they just announce him as the winner anyway.
  - Nadreck
    
    Indeed. Mugabe has been running the country into the grave since about 5 minutes after the civil war ended: starting with his genocidal attacks on other tribes in order to consolidate his power. However, he was, and continues to be in some cases, cheerfully supported by people in the West because he’s a black guy who helped boot out an evil white guy. After all, the whole universe is just like the 60s US civil rights movement, right?
    
    The possibility that he would end up being orders of magnitude worse than what he replaced never occurred. Dr. Nkomo’s speech “We who fought against these things now practice them..”, made while burying another revolutionary hero murdered by Mugabe, is required reading for all such racist orientalists. http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/news/14323/speech-made-by-dr-joshua-nkomo-.html
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      However, he was, and continues to be in some cases, cheerfully supported by people in the West because he’s a black guy who helped boot out an evil white guy.
      
      Do you have any examples of that? I helped put Mr. Mugabe in power, and I haven’t supported him for some decades now.
      - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
        
        He’s not entirely wrong. Mugabe was supported almost unconditionally during the 80s because he was on the northern border of Apartheid-era South Africa.
        
        The West was happy to support one of the only African regimes that was anti-communist especially if it functioned as moral posturing that got them cheaper minerals from their southern neighbour.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Mugabe is a communist (in name at least.) ZANU is a communist organization. ZAPU, their partner in the Patriotic Front, wasn’t, but they lost, mostly because ZANU was associated with the majority Shona and ZAPU with the minority Ndebele.
      - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
        
        It’s more posturing. Being communist “in name” would get them loads of AK-47s and support from militant factions that communist rhetoric seemed capable of creating during the Cold War.
        
        The SACP is a pretty large part of the ANC, but that doesn’t mean they’re rounding up kulaks (yet).
  - digi_owl
    
    I wonder how much of their current issues are a legacy of the British rule…
    
    I wonder this because the current middle eastern mess is a direct result of British crazy…
    
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/03/bodybuilding_and_nation-buildi.html
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Homophobia, which is frequently championed as an aspect of local culture in several African countries, seems to have largely been a colonial import from Europe.
      - digi_owl
        
        Makes one wonder, given that the Romans apparently did not care either way as long as you did not flaunt it (something one or two emperors did).
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Edik-Mitgartz/1557110247 Edik Mitgartz
    
    Actually he is from the opposition party. Whatever it means there…
- marilove
  
  Elected. Nice. LOL. This is Zimbabwe. I mean come on.
syncrotic

Zimbabwe: almost a country, since 1980.
kP

You sure this dude ain’t from Florida?
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

LOL, cultural relativism.
bcveen

I’m admittedly fairly ignorant of the religious landscape of Anglophone African, but does anyone see a parallel here with the “Second Great Awakening” of nineteenth-century America, in which all manner of syncretistic belief systems emerged, combining vaguely Christian beliefs with folk religion and popular spirituality (i.e. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Mormonism, etc.)? I mean, Evangelicals have been aggressively proselytizing Anglophone Africa for generations. How much of this anti-woman, anti-gay attitude is attributable to indigenous beliefs and how much to aggressive Western religious indoctrination?
- digi_owl
  
  We have enough trouble trying to sift religion from culture in Europe as it is…
Nate Cougill

Why didn’t we think of that?! It’s WAY easier than wearing condoms! This guy’s ignorance is painful!
noah django

Morgan Femai: spokesman, Idiots Without Borders
http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

To be fair, the men of Zimbabwe are now expected to have part of their genitalia sliced off.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/9278524/Zimbabwean-MPs-to-be-circumcised-as-part-of-HIVAids-campaign.html
- http://twitter.com/moopy713 Red Garner
  
  There is a HUGE difference between male circumcision and female circumcision. Huge.
  - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
    
    Depends on the type.
    
    Globally, the two most common forms of FGM are hood-splitting (which is less invasive than male cutting) and hood-trimming, which removes identical tissue (the prepuce) and is available as a cosmetic procedure in the West called a “hoodectomy” or “Toronto Trim”.
    
    Trimming the labia minora is another popular procedure in the West, but in FGM is usually accompanied by removal of the entire clitoris. To say nothing of the hygiene problems. Which, incidentally, also kill hundreds of men in African ritual cutting every year.
    
    Both are rooted in suppressing sexual pleasure and are culturally rationalised as “hygienic”. Performed on infants, both are ethical violations on the autonomy and integrity of the body. At least in the West girls are protected by law. No luck for boys, though.
    
    And despite the MPs’ dedication, it’s too bad the research is bogus: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2012/05/when-bad-science-kills-or-how-to-spread-aids/
    - chgoliz
      
      Don’t forget the part about FGM usually being done on children or adolescents (not babies) and that it routinely causes lifelong problems with sex, childbirth, and evacuating urine/feces….fistulas being a prime example.
      - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
        
        In the more severe forms, yes. It is a socially-endorsed crime.
        
        Let’s also note that MGM in Turkey and in many parts of Africa is, in fact, performed on older children and teenagers without anaesthetic, frequently resulting in gangrene, loss of the entire penis and death.
        
        For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to minimise the horror of FGM, we all know it’s absolutely awful. I’m trying to emphasise what a blind eye we turn to the genital mutilation of males.
Jake0748

Wait a minute… ” Femai speaking to a parliamentary HIV awareness workshop in the central city of Kadoma”…
This was an HIV awareness workshop? On what planet? WTF was he even doing there?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000594643800 Matthew Moulton

Wouldn’t it simply be easier to chemically castrate all the men? They take a pill every week and it acts like anti-Viagra…woohoo, no sex! Best of all, they won’t be able to BREED that way! :D

Also, did anyone else get the impression that this guy is like…seriously in the closet? I mean, he wants WOMEN to be ugly and smelly and MAN LIKE…pretty sure he’s just lookin for transexual women to try and hide his love of the dark side of the rump ride.

As an alternative, we could simply carpet bomb the entire “country” into complete oblivion…I mean, that ~would~ stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
RuthlessRuben

Ah yes, Zimbabwe, proving once again that, no matter how cruel, inhumane or downright horrible your idea, some official in Africa is ready to one-up you on it.

I remember a story from some point in the early 2000′s about the former king of Zimbabwe releasing a book that blamed women’s suffrage for climate change. Among several other things. And this guy probably has a signed copy on his coffee table.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The last King of Zimbabwe was George VI, Elizabeth II’s father. I don’t think that there’s been a local monarch since the 19th century.
  - RuthlessRuben
    
    Whelp, my mistake then. Best take the story with a grain of salt until I can pin that random fact on some definite person.
SoItBegins

Um, HIV is not a bacterium. It is a retrovirus. [/missingthepoint]
Petzl

There are wars on women, and wars on women.
iCowboy

Oh dear lord, the MDC were meant to be the sane alternative to Robert Mugabe. Carry on like this and they could secure the GOP nomination.
Sebastian Wiers

Yeah, his idiocy is shocking. Its also only slightly more outlandish than what you see in the US congress / senate (or for a more direct comparison, state legislatures).
Digilante

“African solutions for African problems” – that’s all I heard for decades. What makes this case so special?
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

What a bastion of civil liberties.

Send this man the Nobel Peace Prize, stat.
journey46

Moisture is an “M” word.

If “M” words must be dealt with using dehumanization or castration then one must include other “M” words like

Morgan, Miscreant, and Morgan’s Man Parts.
Nina O

Mockery seems rather hollow in sight of so much undisguised misogyny.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=523338380 Colin Berry

Ugh, I wish this post didn’t appear right above an ad for hunting knives. Made me a little queasy.
- MrHarley
  
  you sir should look into adblock plus
el dueno

On the other hand, women won’t touch a man who doesn’t shave and has his penis cut-off. That too would protect against transmission of HIV. There are probably some angry Zimbabwean women out there volunteering to start the program. Perhaps Mr Fernai would like to be the first in line for the procedure.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

If Morgan Femai were only born in the USA, he’d have just taken the top spot on Mitt Romney’s list of potential VP candidates. Maybe he should run for governor for the Arizona GOP.
thermoplasticity

I just love the advanced future world of 2012!
Ipo

George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina would probably vote for him.
http://twitter.com/SSGGeezer Thomas Needham

Probably believes that HIV is cured by having sex with a virgin. That is one for the creepy and powerful of Africa to try.
benher

How to cure HIV/AIDs: Eat Da Poo Poo!

(Google it if you don’t know, but you’d have to be living under the same rock as the guy who hasn’t heard of LOLCATs)