ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the dynamics of the experiences of shame regarding male and female circumcision in African cultures. It illuminates how toxic masculinity and colonialism/anti-colonialism underwrite both kinds of experiences. The chapter engages with the shame of being uncircumcised for both African women and men among circumcising cultures and the shame of that very circumcision when circumcised women enter spaces where the act is chastised or when the act does not yield what is promised for men. To do so, the chapter analyses literary representations of experiences of shame among un/circumcised women in East Africa and North Africa, and un/circumcised men in East Africa and South Africa. Analyses of literary representations are infused with socio-historical realities of the communities under study. What is revealed is that these experiences of shame are largely a consequence of demands from communities of respect where one’s social identity overrides one’s individual identity. It is in this respect that African circumcising cultures demand circumcision as a spiritual marker of membership. This means the uncircumcised as well as those circumcised outside cultural dictates, such as those who undergo hospital circumcision, would suffer shame on account of having transgressed or overlooked their cultural responsibilities, which effectively delegitimizes their societal belonging.
