This is a complex issue with diverse explanations that vary from society to society, culture to culture, and across history.

It is usually to do with the politics of gender in traditional societies. Especially in the Middle East and Melanesia.

It's a topic that's best left to anthropologists and sociologists to explore. If you're interested in delving into this subject then there are plenty of studies of it in the various anthropology and sociology journals.

The author is dead right. There is some mysterious double standard when it comes to male circumscision. It is extraordinary to see the near universal opposition to FGM and compare it to the tepid, vascillating attitudes amongst medical colleges on the subject of the circumscision of infant boys.

If an adult of either sex chooses to alter the way they look, there's not much any of us can do about that other than let him or her get on with it. But to mutilate a child of either gender is simply abhorrent.
As concerns a girl, the practice of clitoridectomy is so outside any standard of civilised behaviour that I can recognise that it boggles my mind it can still be tolerated anywhere in the world. It's illegal in Oz, and let's keep it that way. There is no place for cultural relativism here.
As concerns a boy, to make the blood sacrifice of an infant's foreskin is wholly barbaric, whether the deity being appeased is Jehovah, Allah or the Rainbow Serpent.
Think about it. A newborn (or under-aged teenager for that matter) is handed over to the priests (doctors).
Snip. Howl!
"Welcome to the world, son. We just did that for your own good."
"Gee, thanks, Mum. Thanks, Dad. I certainly do feel better now."

Why do so many stupid adults force their idiotics onto defenceless little kids ? I suppose if they were not stupid they'd wait till those kids are old enough to make a decision for themselves.

SOME GREAT MINDS ON HERE.
GREAT CHANGE COMES FROM LOOKING FORWARD NOT BACK.
SURELY THERE ARE BIGGER FISH TO FRY.
UNSCATHED.

legs2041, "The author is dead right. There is some mysterious double standard when it comes to male circumcision"

Agreed

Amazingly, it is OK to prosletyse for circumcision, a religious ritual, arguing that some women 'like' a circumcised penis. If men made the same comment about trimming the saddlebags on a normal healthy vagina there would be hell to pay. In fact there will be righteous anger at the reference to 'saddlebags' - just to prove a point.

Doctors report that the occasional skin adhesions of the penis of some boys is caused by mothers mistakenly forcing the foreskin back on infants and young boys for 'cleaning'. However that is not required in the young and the foreskin will become moveable at the right time. Mothers need some advice in that respect.

Above all, mothers should take their child home intact from hospital.