| Abstract
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Female Genital Cutting (FGC) is a significant public health problem for women and girls but also men. It contributes to both immediate and long-term injury, health and sexual disability, and it is an infringement on human rights. Women, girls and men, families, as well as society, incur enormous economic and social costs as a result of the practice of FGC. In particular, we know little about men's preferences, men's attitudes towards the practice of FGC and the challenges men face in trying to stop or encourage it. On the other hand, it has been largely claimed that men support and perpetuate the practice of female genital cutting. While the literature examining FGC dealt primarily with negative impacts on women and the role of men in perpetuating the practice, the literature has reinforced the position that women are "innocent victims" and men are the "violent perpetrators" which gender theory sought to refute. In so doing, the studies on FGC have treated men as one homogenous group and failed to explore the differences across cultures, regions, communities and countries where FGC is practiced. Similar critiques have also emerged on feminist literature on gender and the ways in which some feminists have treated women as a homogenous group without attention to differences resulting from ethnic, race, religion, cultural and other factors. This study is firstly an attempt to separate the way some of the gender literature glosses over men and women, treating them as homogenous groups (Duncan & Hernlund, 2003). The study also seeks to explore the impacts and attitudes of men towards FGC and the role the various actors play in the practice in Nigeria.
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