Unbalancing Society: Where are all the baby girls?

This past week The Economist ran a story about gendercide and the declining rate of female births worldwide, more specifically in China and India. I found this story intriguing because its ideologies I have seen within my own family.

My maternal grandparents so badly wanted a boy that they were willing to have four children at the expense of their savings account and my grandmother's health to attain that dream. The saddest thing had to be the day that my youngest aunt was born; my mother said that when she came home from school everyone acted like it was a funeral and no one actually celebrated her sister's birth.

Now these ideas may be cast aside as old fashioned, or perhaps even as a different generation, but as the article points out, that is just not the case. Education and increased money have actually perpetuated this gender preference, instead of negating it. What drives that? My theory rests with cultural stereotypes runnign deep, especially in Asian countries (and yes, India does count as Asia.). As much as education and affluence can do pull the people out of penury and despair, it can also give rise to attaining aspirations that were previously unachievable (such as having that male son/heir). Ultrasounds are only $12; abortions happen dime a dozen. One never has to see their daughter if they don't want to.

Cultural ideologies and community relationships are intertwined in these societies, so to combat them you have to attack the main problem, the reasoning behind it. My aunt thinks its because there is an obscure religious text where it says that fathers of male children will attain Nirvana. Others keep a more paternalistic outlook, seeing the male child as the heir and perpetuation of the family name. Male children don't have dowries and can keep property in their name. But why, in this time when females have increased educational and ownership opportunities, would these things matter anymore?

While The Economist did not posit any suggestions for this, I believe that these concerns may fall further along class lines. Two generations back, the majority of Indians (85%) lived in villages, with less education and growth opportunities than their city counterparts. But as India has progressed from colonial times to the modern age, so have its citizens, heading in droves to cities, occupying slums and various other ramshackle apartments. Their pursuits are of little concern, but their numbers are outstanding, with only 70% of Indians choosing to live in villages in 1991. Those numbers are growing, and with increased opportunities, there is a growing middle class as well. This middle class is only one (less for some) generation removed from the village outlook and mentality.

It is truly unfortunate that children are manipulated this way, but studies show that female Indian children are still better off than their Chinese equivalents, who are often unceremoniously killed upon arrival. The one child policy has left China worse off for the future, featuring staggering statistics of 123 males to 100 female births. Social unrest is imminent, with increasing males and less options for creating families (who will be their brides?), dissatisfied males will look to something to keep them occupied. Maybe China knows this and is excellent at keeping down rebellions (read: Tinamen Square) or they have not considered a future with frustrated young males itching to break out. The possibilities are endless, but all eyes are on China in twenty years.

As for India, the next generation may hold the key to gender stability. Yet, as more people move from villages to the city, there may be periodic pendulum swings in gender ratios as well. Sometimes you can take the person out of the village, but you just can't take the village out of the person.


"Gendercide: The Worldwide War on Baby Girls." The Economist 4 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Mar. 2010. <http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15636231&source=hptextfeature>

The Meaning of Work

As part of a Simple Living workshop I am a part of, we have been delving into various aspects of life that do or do not allow us to attain a more simple, happy way of existence. It is a 5 week workshop, meeting every Wednesday at a neighborhood church with people of various backgrounds, old and young, religious and atheist, married and single, working and retired. Our topic last week focused on the meaning of work and from what was said is what I wish to ponder.

My entire life my parents have wanted me to become a physician, so I promptly rebelled against them, opting to try to get into the legal profession. It wasn't until I went to India one summer during college did I feel truly compelled to join the medical profession. My aunt introduced me to a doctor in Bangalore, and I followed other doctors at the hospital he worked at, but one day he decided to take me to a rural town outside Bangalore. There was one government hospital that serviced the ONE MILLION people around it, and when I met the hospital's director, he was so proud of his hospital, working with limited resources and professionals, that was thriving. Thriving was a relative term; patients were sleeping in the hallways, roaches were running down the corridors, and the anesthesiologist showed up maybe 3 days a week, often inebriated, but it was better than nothing at all. The most moving was going into the Obstetrics "ward". The smell was noxious, and bloody sheets lay in the corner. Human suffering was all around me and I felt helpless, and right then the true passion of doing medicine hit me full force. Just because I was helpless did not mean I always needed to be.

I have never expected everyone around me to have the same compelling stories or the same motives for going into medical school, but for a very long time it has irked me that people went into the medical profession for monetary reasons alone. I feel that it in some way it denigrated what I wanted to do with my life. What I realized at last week's meeting was that it was all right if people go into a profession for less than the "right" reasons, because they will still manage to make a difference in people's lives. Maybe the difference just lies in our perceptions of what we do? I will always be overjoyed by being to help people, and for others it might always remain "just a job", and I suppose that's their loss.

As part of our readings, Bronson stresses that wanting to live your dream is important, but if a person isn't sure what that is, it's alright to pursue multiple things. A Hollywood exec hates her life, so attempts to go to medical school, but hates that too. Her life is not over, even though that's what many people would think. The idea that once you go to school for something you must stick with it forever is archaic. America offers us the mobility and opportunities (and federal funding) to pursue that degree in Sociology we might have always wanted. I guess more people need to be told they can do what they like, that having a job can be something to get excited about, because life can be more fulfilling than a paycheck.

The importance of money is discussed as well. Does money make people happy? Well, to a degree, yes. Poverty is never something to be excited about, but after a certain amount, it stops being about feeding one's self and making sure you have a roof over your head, and about what next big fancy thing you can buy, and things in a general sense have not been proven to make people overly happy, except in the short-term. Cultivating relationships, searching to find those things that bring peace to our lives, seeing the world and being blissfully aware, those are things money cannot buy, but often those are things not talked about either.

More people need to be told it's okay to pursue something further, something great enough to live for, to be proud of, to really want to do. As long as you are able to make ends meet and not living in a homeless shelter, the highest salary should not always be of first concern, but contentment and happiness instead. So congratulations to all of those who have found, and for all those still looking? Good luck, I'm on your side.

Bronson, Po. "What Should I Do With My Life?" Fast Company 2003. Print.

A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step

Being in a graduate program has actually managed to make a mind thirsty for real education. The undergraduate education allows a varied approach to learning, exposing the student to so many different things that becoming an intellectual is easy and sustainable. Once the graduate world arrives, energies become focused on specific topics, creating an esoteric world that no one, sans the others in your class, could begin to understand.

This blog's creation is merely a way to express a desire to go farther than what is presented to me on paper, but to understand literature, political movements, foreign concepts and ideas, the news, even movies and pop culture. My hopes are to cultivate a real understanding of myself and the human experience in the process. Wish me luck?