Girls
Save the girl child
It's an article from the Guardian about sex selection in India -- abortion of female foetuses, IVF sex selection, abuse of women who bear girls, etc.
I have no solutions to suggest. I am a privileged, white, western woman, and this issue is tied up with Indian culture, of which I am basically ignorant. I feel that it cannot be right to value male babies over female ones. I know that sex is determined by the father's X or Y chromosome, not by the X which is all the mother can give.
But India is a stable, secular, democratic state, with its own culture and its own laws and surely no suggestion I can make will be anything like as sensible as what the Indian executive and legislature can come up with themselves. They feel this is wrong too. They are trying to solve what they also see as a problem -- and it's a problem they understand from the inside, because they are Indian, as I am not. They have passed laws banning scans revealing a baby's sex. They have passed laws banning abortion for sex selection and sex-selected IVF. So far that has not stopped the practice entirely. Presumably they are also trying to educate the poorer and more rural segments of the population about how exactly sex is determined, so women won't be beaten and looked down upon when they bear the girls their husbands gave them. Presumably some measures are being taken against the practice of demanding a dowry for brides so girls won't be a "burden" on the family in the first place. Presumably the country is working all the time to improve education so women might have other options than marriage for financial independence in any event. Presumably they are taking steps and implementing measures I haven't thought of.
So I have no suggestions to make to India. I have no privileged, white, western advice to give. I feel that the stories of Rekha, of Dr Mitu Khannari, and of Nirmala Deva are tragic, and wrong, outrageously wrong. I feel they have suffered unspeakable injustice. It makes me very, very angry -- in fact, every feminist cell in my feminist body is alight with outrage at this situation -- but still I don't feel there is anything that I, personally, can do.
It's an article from the Guardian about sex selection in India -- abortion of female foetuses, IVF sex selection, abuse of women who bear girls, etc.
I have no solutions to suggest. I am a privileged, white, western woman, and this issue is tied up with Indian culture, of which I am basically ignorant. I feel that it cannot be right to value male babies over female ones. I know that sex is determined by the father's X or Y chromosome, not by the X which is all the mother can give.
But India is a stable, secular, democratic state, with its own culture and its own laws and surely no suggestion I can make will be anything like as sensible as what the Indian executive and legislature can come up with themselves. They feel this is wrong too. They are trying to solve what they also see as a problem -- and it's a problem they understand from the inside, because they are Indian, as I am not. They have passed laws banning scans revealing a baby's sex. They have passed laws banning abortion for sex selection and sex-selected IVF. So far that has not stopped the practice entirely. Presumably they are also trying to educate the poorer and more rural segments of the population about how exactly sex is determined, so women won't be beaten and looked down upon when they bear the girls their husbands gave them. Presumably some measures are being taken against the practice of demanding a dowry for brides so girls won't be a "burden" on the family in the first place. Presumably the country is working all the time to improve education so women might have other options than marriage for financial independence in any event. Presumably they are taking steps and implementing measures I haven't thought of.
So I have no suggestions to make to India. I have no privileged, white, western advice to give. I feel that the stories of Rekha, of Dr Mitu Khannari, and of Nirmala Deva are tragic, and wrong, outrageously wrong. I feel they have suffered unspeakable injustice. It makes me very, very angry -- in fact, every feminist cell in my feminist body is alight with outrage at this situation -- but still I don't feel there is anything that I, personally, can do.