In several surveys since 2006, over 50 percent of women in Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gambia, and Egypt supported FGMs continuance, while elsewhere in Africa, Iraq, and Yemen most said it should end, although in several countries only by a narrow margin. Social obligation, poor access to information
Against the argument that women willingly choose FGM for their daughters, UNICEF calls the practice a "self-enforcing social convention" to which families feel they must conform to avoid uncut daughters facing social exclusion. Ellen Gruenbaum reported that, in Sudan in the 1970s, cut girls from an Arab ethnic group would mock uncut Zabarma girls with Ya, Ghalfa! ("Hey, unclean!"). The Zabarma girls would respond Ya, mutmura! (A mutmara was a storage pit for grain that was continually opened and closed, like an infibulated woman.) But despite throwing the insult back, the Zabarma girls would ask their mothers, "Whats the matter? Dont we have razor blades like the Arabs? "Because of poor access to information, and because circumcisers downplay the causal connection, women may not associate the health consequences with the procedure. Lala Baldé, president of a womens association in Medina Cherif, a village in Senegal, told Mackie in 1998 that when girls fell ill or died, it was attributed to evil spirits. When informed of the causal relationship between FGM and ill health, Mackie wrote, the women broke down and wept. He argued that surveys taken before and after this sharing of information would show very different levels of support for FGM.
While it can be argued that vivo exposure treatment, patients being exposed to an aircraft, is the most effective way of treatment, but VRET is more cost-effective, accessible, less time-consuming, and requires less organization. Another advantage of VRET over vivo exposure treatment is that it focuses on the main reason that elicits fear of flying easily. For example, if the patients most anxiety-inducing-component is takeoff, in VRET the patient would be exposed to a plane takeoff repeatedly while in vivo exposure the patient would have to wait for the plane to land and then take off again. Outcomes
Studies of interventions like CBT have reported rates of reduction in anxiety of around 80%; however, there is little evidence that any treatment can eliminate fear of flying. Epidemiology
Estimates for prevalence have ranged between 2.5% and 40%; estimates on the lower end are probably generated through studies where the condition is diagnosed by a professional, and the higher end probably includes people who have diagnosed themselves. History
Fear of flying was first discussed in the biomedical literature by a doctor in the UK at the end of World War I, who called it "aero-neurosis" and was describing pilots and crew who were or became anxious about flying. It was not much discussed until the 1950s and rise of commercial air travel and the vogue in psychoanalysis. Starting in the 1970s fear of flying was addressed through behavioral and cognitive approaches.