The death of little sisters
There are over 100 million missing women in the world. In rich countries, as well as the poor; in the educated ranks as well as uneducated; across all religious backgrounds -- women are missing in startling numbers. 100 million. That's like having one third of the American population going missing; our the entire population of Canada being wiped out three times. No only are women the poorest in the world; the most likely to experience violence within their lifetimes; but they are also the largest visible group to which the world wages a quiet war against.
It starts with the ancient prejudice -- males are preferable to females in all societies -- for a variety of reasons that are no longer valid today. Family names are passed down through males; inheritance of property favours males; males earn more women; traditional societies expect the parents of females to pay dowry; males are assumed to be the ones who would be capable of taking care of their parents in old-age; males supply the hard labour for families dependent on all members contributing; and so on. In effect, society values females less than males.
Combined with the modern preference for smaller families -- in the extremes, like China, where the law forbids having more than one child, this becomes a potent mix -- and the prevalence of modern medicine, such as ultrasound, allowing parents to determine the sex of a fetus -- less girls are being born today. And even when they're born, the danger isn't over. In places where the sex of the child isn't readily determine before birth, some parents opt to murder their baby girls to try again for a son.
What happens when society prefers boys over girls is horrendous. China implemented its one-child policy in 1978. As a result, across the country, baby girls started disappearing. They were either not being born, or dying a swift death after birth. It's now projected that by 2020, there will be 30 million men unable to find a mate in China. That's big. China's one-child policy however, doesn't carry the entire blame. In India, with a slightly smaller population than China, the figure is just as bad. By 2020, it's expected that there will be 25 million young "surplus males." In other Asian, as well as former Soviet countries, the disparity is the same -- and there is no governing policy discriminating against the size of a family -- or females -- in those countries. There are less females simply because they're being aborted or murdered.
For proof, one simply has to look at the preference for boys after the first child has been born. After the first born, regardless of sex, the preference for a boy increases dramatically. In South Korea for example, by the third child, parents are so desperate to have a son, that the ratio is nearly two boys being born for every one girl. That should be a 1:1 ratio -- but it's 2:1! And South Korea isn't an uneducated country. So ignorance can't be blamed. In fact, contrary to expectations, the better educated and higher earning the population, the worse the plight of females are. It's simple to understand. These parents know how to select for boys -- and they can afford ultrasounds to abort females before they're born.
It's easy to dismiss all of this as happening in those other countries, where people are ignorant; and are saddled with traditional cultures. But this is our problem too, since it's happening right here in Canada. As young Canadian couples, and chances are you're likely to hear a preference for boys over girls -- or simply, they would be happy with any child, but would like to have a son somewhere along the line. What needs to change is the attitude towards females in general. I feel the need to repeat this over and over -- females are valuable to our society and species. What don't you understand about that?
"all countries need to raise the value of girls. They should encourage female education; abolish laws and customs that prevent daughters inheriting property; make examples of hospitals and clinics with impossible sex ratios; get women engaged in public life-using everything from television newsreaders to women traffic police. Mao Zedong said "women hold up half the sky." The world needs to do more to prevent a gendercide that will have the sky crashing down."
- The war on baby girls: Gendercide | The Economist (view on Google Sidewiki)
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