In response to Hannah Stein’s Jan. 31 letter, “Female genital mutilation violates human rights,” on the Jan. 29 article on professor Elizabeth Boyle’s talk on female genital mutilation and human rights, “U prof: Westerners mishandle female circumcision issues,” I am concerned with Stein’s assumptions on what Boyle thinks.

From reading Stein’s letter it seems she did not attend the lecture or read Boyle’s book,

but instead is making assumptions from a small article about the lecture in the Daily. To me, it is quite absurd that Stein can make assumptions about Boyle, such as what she misses in her argument or what she believes about human rights, if she did not attend the talk or read the original work.

If Stein would have read Boyle’s work, she would know Boyle’s work discusses cultural reasoning behind female circumcision, including curbing sexual drive, which she states Boyle ignores.

Instead of assuming what Boyle thinks based on this small article in the Daily, Stein should read Boyle’s work herself first before making assumptions. I thought as graduate and professional students at this University we were trained to check original sources and not to rely on summaries or others interpretations of a work.

Trina Smith, graduate student, sociology