Several reviewers predicted that Possessing the Secret of Joy would stir up controversy. It has not in the United States, probably for the same reason Alice Hall Petry suggests The Color Purple did not stir up as much controversy in the rest of society as it did in the African-American community: White society was not in the arena. For the most part, someone else's actions, and not America's own, are up for discussion in Possessing the Secret of Joy.

That said, there is still plenty to discuss. The Lancet, a British medical journal, notes that female circumcision is only part of a rite young women in Africa go through to become initiated into adulthood. Much positive information is shared at the time of the ritual.

The Lancet charges, "By taking circumcision out of its cultural context, Walker has clearly displayed the ethnocentric view of an outsider...