Culture Relativism

Culture relativism is defined as a perspective which asks that we evaluate other cultures according to their standards, not ours. This reminds me of an article I read about a famous author got two people together that had completely different cultures. One believed that when their fathers die that they would cremate them and that was natural. The other believed that when their fathers died that they would eat their father’s flesh and that was natural and how it should be done. The author brought these two men aside to meet each other at some meeting and ask them what they do when their father’s died. When one told their beliefs the other was appalled and disgusted. Which points out that it all depends on your beliefs. If you grew up eating flesh of your fathers that would be normal, but to hear that someone burns them would seem wrong and immoral. The case of female genital mutilation obviously strikes me as wrong and immoral cause it’s not something that I believe in and am used to hearing about. I do believe that it is a human rights violation. Genital mutilation is believed by some to enhance nature and make the women beautiful, hard-working, modest, and chaste. I think it’s hard to be beautiful when you’re in a lot of pain and hemorrhaging as well as having urinary infections and blood poisoning that causes serious illness or even death. Not to mention lifetime problems including cyst, chronic pelvic infections, urinary tract infections, abscesses, and many more. It’s hard to imagine them do this to young girls that are 6 to 8 years old. To have that many problems that young is horrible. If the women want to do this down the line when they are old enough to know the risks then that is their decision but to do this to young children is horrible. I don’t think that these women getting this procedure done know all the risks involved or that they are considered an outcast or a bad person if they don’t get it done.
An American custom that can be considered a human rights violation all the plastic surgery going on. These days are such a struggle for people to look ‘perfect’ because of the impact media has affected everyone. People are starving themselves, getting plastic surgery, and other operations. These people are starting to look more fake by the day because they feel if they don’t look perfect that they won’t be liked or won’t get all the attention that they want. Attention and fame isn’t everything. It sickens me that people are dieing because they are starving themselves because they are models and they have to look like skin and bones before the photo shoot. They look so fragile and weak. I strongly believe it’s a human rights violation because most of these people are being told that they are to fat and must lose weight or they can’t work. Something has to be done about that because it’s out of control.