Historically, female genital modifications such as female mutilation, interventions on the hymen have been observed in different sociohistorical contexts. Far from being disqualified by the advent of modern medicine, some of these practices have been integrated into and legitimized by the medical sector. Advances in the biomedical sphere since the 1970s have opened up a new medical field around the surgical techniques of female genital (re)construction, especially for hymenoplasty and clitoral reconstructive surgery. This article aims to document these two medical procedures in their symbolic dimension and to understand the social representations and discourses that accompany them in the public space in France. A case study was carried out through textual analysis of an online media corpus (n = 202 press articles), to identify how different types of press frame these surgeries. In France, they are performed on migrant women or their daughters, whose bodies are placed in tension between sexual and body norms of the host country and those of the country of origin. Several studies have broached this double set of body norms and identity choices facing migrant women. Far from this social reality, however, the press tends to frame female genital surgeries in ways which reinforce representations on gender, immigration and otherness.
Sarah Boisson (Mon,) studied this question.