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Anthropologists have accused FGM eradicationists of [[cultural imperialism|cultural colonialism]], and have been criticized in turn for their [[moral relativism]] and failure to defend the idea of universal [[human rights]].{{sfn|Silverman|2004|loc=420}} According to critics of the eradicationist position, the [[Reductionism#In science|biological reductionism]] of the opposition to FGM, and the failure to appreciate FGM's cultural context, serves to "[[Othering|other]]" practitioners and undermine their agency—in particular when parents are referred to as "mutilators".{{sfn|Kirby|2005|loc=83}}
Africans who object to the tone of FGM opposition risk appearing to defend the practice. The feminist theorist [[Obioma Nnaemeka]], herself strongly opposed to FGM, argued in 2005 that renaming the practice ''female genital mutilation'' had introduced "a subtext of barbaric African and Muslim cultures and the West's relevance (even indispensability) in purging [it]".{{sfn|Nnaemeka|2005|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XjctVvOzzcQC&pg=PA33 33]}} According to Ugandan law professor [[Sylvia Tamale]], the early Western opposition to FGM stemmed from a Judeo-Christian judgment that African sexual and family practices, including not only FGM but also [[dry sex]], [[polygyny]], [[bride price]] and [[levirate marriage]], required correction. African feminists "take strong exception to the imperialist, racist and dehumanising infantilization of African women", she wrote in 2011.{{sfn|Tamale|2011|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=xSqIrrswbG0C&pg=PA19 19–20]}} Commentators highlight the voyeurism in the treatment of women's bodies as exhibits. Examples include images of women's vulvas after FGM or girls undergoing the procedure.{{sfn|Nnaemeka|2005|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XjctVvOzzcQC&pg=PA30 30–33]}} The 1996 [[#Pulitzer|Pulitzer-prize-winning photographs]] of a 16-year-old Kenyan girl experiencing FGM were published by 12 American newspapers, without her consent either to be photographed or to have the images published.<ref>{{harvnb|Korieh|2005|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XjctVvOzzcQC&pg=PA121 121–122]}}; for the photographs, see {{cite web |title=Stephanie
The debate has highlighted a tension between anthropology and feminism, with the former's focus on tolerance and the latter's on equal rights for women. According to the anthropologist Christine Walley, a common position in anti-FGM literature has been to present African women as victims of [[false consciousness]] participating in their own oppression, a position promoted by feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fran Hosken, [[Mary Daly]] and Hanny Lightfoot-Klein.{{sfn|Walley|2002|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=t_5a39rTNB8C&pg=PA18 18], 34, 43, [https://books.google.com/books?id=t_5a39rTNB8C&pg=PA60 60]}} It prompted the French Association of Anthropologists to issue a statement in 1981, at the height of the early debates, that "a certain feminism resuscitates (today) the moralistic arrogance of yesterday's colonialism".{{sfn|Bagnol|Mariano|2011|loc=281}}
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