...Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That (TM)...
Posted on 03/05/2010 10:10:49 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising
IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry.
Now imagine that you have had an ultrasound scan; it costs $12, but you can afford that. The scan says the unborn child is a girl. You yourself would prefer a boy; the rest of your family clamours for one. You would never dream of killing a baby daughter, as they do out in the villages. But an abortion seems different. What do you do?
For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son. In China and northern India more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys’ greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale.
For those who oppose abortion, this is mass murder. For those such as this newspaper, who think abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” (to use Bill Clinton’s phrase), a lot depends on the circumstances, but the cumulative consequence for societies of such individual actions is catastrophic. China alone stands to have as many unmarried young men—“bare branches”, as they are known—as the entire population of young men in America. In any country rootless young males spell trouble; in Asian societies, where marriage and children are the recognised routes into society, single men are almost like outlaws. Crime rates, bride trafficking, sexual violence, even female suicide rates are all rising and will rise further as the lopsided generations reach their maturity (see article).
It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions—aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990 an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100m; the toll is higher now. The crumb of comfort is that countries can mitigate the hurt, and that one, South Korea, has shown the worst can be avoided. Others need to learn from it if they are to stop the carnage.
The dearth and death of little sisters
Most people know China and northern India have unnaturally large numbers of boys. But few appreciate how bad the problem is, or that it is rising. In China the imbalance between the sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls for the generation born in the late 1980s; for the generation of the early 2000s, it was 124 to 100. In some Chinese provinces the ratio is an unprecedented 130 to 100. The destruction is worst in China but has spread far beyond. Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan and Singapore, former communist states in the western Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America’s population (Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example): all these have distorted sex ratios. Gendercide exists on almost every continent. It affects rich and poor; educated and illiterate; Hindu, Muslim, Confucian and Christian alike.
Wealth does not stop it. Taiwan and Singapore have open, rich economies. Within China and India the areas with the worst sex ratios are the richest, best-educated ones. And China’s one-child policy can only be part of the problem, given that so many other countries are affected.
In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus. In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters. But now couples want two children—or, as in China, are allowed only one—they will sacrifice unborn daughters to their pursuit of a son. That is why sex ratios are most distorted in the modern, open parts of China and India. It is also why ratios are more skewed after the first child: parents may accept a daughter first time round but will do anything to ensure their next—and probably last—child is a boy. The boy-girl ratio is above 200 for a third child in some places.
How to stop half the sky crashing down
Baby girls are thus victims of a malign combination of ancient prejudice and modern preferences for small families. Only one country has managed to change this pattern. In the 1990s South Korea had a sex ratio almost as skewed as China’s. Now, it is heading towards normality. It has achieved this not deliberately, but because the culture changed. Female education, anti-discrimination suits and equal-rights rulings made son preference seem old-fashioned and unnecessary. The forces of modernity first exacerbated prejudice—then overwhelmed it.
But this happened when South Korea was rich. If China or India—with incomes one-quarter and one-tenth Korea’s levels—wait until they are as wealthy, many generations will pass. To speed up change, they need to take actions that are in their own interests anyway. Most obviously China should scrap the one-child policy. The country’s leaders will resist this because they fear population growth; they also dismiss Western concerns about human rights. But the one-child limit is no longer needed to reduce fertility (if it ever was: other East Asian countries reduced the pressure on the population as much as China). And it massively distorts the country’s sex ratio, with devastating results. President Hu Jintao says that creating “a harmonious society” is his guiding principle; it cannot be achieved while a policy so profoundly perverts family life.
And 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.
I believe that I read somewhere that Chinese couples out in the farmlands can have two children per family. Can anybody help me out with this one?
“It is not an all-encompassing rule because it has always been restricted to ethnic Han Chinese living in urban areas. Citizens living in rural areas and minorities living in China are not subject to the law.”
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm
...Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That (TM)...
...or perhaps a fondness for farm animals will develop...
...Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That (TM)...
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why liberals think the gender-neutral murdering of baby girls is better than the gender-based murdering of baby girls.
Those who support Free Trade with Communist China....you are supporting this. Instead of keeping American wealth in America.....you Liberal Globalist Free Traders ship American wealth to Communist China....subsidizing abortion and genocide.
I am sure your fellow Liberal Globalist Free Traders like Al Gore and George Soros...are proud of you
That is a very good point!
Yeah that’s never made any sense.
In America there are about 4000 babies murdered each day. For simplicity, we will assume this means that about 2000 girls and 2000 boys die each day. This DOES NOT bother the left at all.
BUT, if we decide to kill those same 2000 girls and don’t kill 2000 boys the left calls it a “war on girls.”
I’ve read something like that too. It was an article about some government ministry had a campaign to remind people that there are exceptions to the one child policy. One is such as you stated another was if you and your wife were only children you could have two.
Haven’t heard a peep from the NAGs on this. Why is that?
I’ve read that one of the reasons is that boys take care of their parents after they get old. Daughters get married off and that’s it. The preference for boys is part of their retirement strategies. Anyway, that’s what little insight I can offer as to the reason.
Killing babies is not wrong. Killing babies without a quota system is wrong.
Does that sum it up?
All smart a$$ed comments aside, what do you think China plans to do with its exploding population of unattached males aged 15-40?
Shouldn’t leave out pro-choice rino and cino politicians.
They’ll probably act the most appalled of all.
There is one caveat to South Korea gender balance. They are importing a lot of what you might call “mail order brides” from countries in SE Asia because so many SK women are too well educated to want to live in South Korea’s rural areas as farmers wives.
I'm confused. Are they baby girls or fetuses? Normally, this magazine calls them fetuses, here they call them baby girls. I'm so confused.
I wonder now if the next generation of Chinese men will go queer, or simply raid Mongolia, Korea, or Siberia for women.
China already has a big problem with prostitution and sexually related diseases including AIDS. Their continued preference for boys will only make this worse.
Young men without women to marry are good fodder for wars and terrorism.
Huh? I suppose I need some examples. Maybe they are talking about the Pro-Abortion Catholics in Congress. They specifically target blacks and not femailes. That would be genocide, not gendercide.
Good point.
“I wonder now if the next generation of Chinese men will go queer, or simply raid Mongolia, Korea, or Siberia for women.”
Or the USA...
Trafficking probe nets 10 Mexican migration agents
Associated Press 2010-03-03
Mexico’s interior department says prosecutors have detained 10 Mexican immigration agents and three airline workers at Cancun’s international airport on suspicion of****** trafficking Chinese migrants.********[headed to the USA!]
The department says in a statement that the agents, along with the two Mexicana Airlines employees and a worker of Livingston Air, allegedly allowed Chinese citizens into the country with false passports.
A statement issued Tuesday by the department says the arrests are part of an investigation that resulted in the detention of 26 immigration agents at Cancun’s airport in January.
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1193808&lang=eng_news&cate_img=logo_world&cate_rss=WORLD_eng
Keyword: Chinese
In Arizona, a Stream of Illegal Immigrants From China
Jan. 23, 2010
Chinese caught en route to the U.S.Dec. 17, 2009
Chinese invasion underway in Arizona Nov. 6, 2009
Remember that the border patrol was initially formed to keep Chinese and Japanese immigrants from coming illegally via Mexico. At the time, Mexican immigrants were allowed to cross freely (believe it or not), while immigration from China and Japan was banned via the Chinese Exclusion Act and the “Gentleman’s Agreement” with the Japanese government.
The answer is that liberals don't have a problem with either. As Rush says, liberals view abortion as a holy sacrament. Abortion is a good thing in whatever manifestation it takes. This is why liberals do not oppose forced abortions in China. One of the first things Obama did when he became president was make an executive order to overturn the Mexico City Policy that banned using US taxpayer dollars to fund abortion overseas.
“At the time, Mexican immigrants were allowed to cross freely (believe it or not)”
I believe it... they used to go back to Mexico because that was before welfare for foreigners and the jackpot baby scam and the promise of amnesty over and over again.
Impossible. Goat-ramming and the like would just create sterile human-animal hybrids. I base that on the knowledge that mules (horse X donkey) are sterile.
I'll take "Military Invasions and Cultural Revolutions" for $1949, Alex.
With queerness apparently being an innate trait, I’ll go with panty-raids on neighboring countries.
“I can’t figure out why liberals think the gender-neutral murdering of baby girls is better than the gender-based murdering of baby girls.”
Because boys (and all things masculine) are evil to liberals.
I'm sorry in some ass backward countries they kill the little girls. Really, I am. Obviously, that's evil. But in our own country, how long will it be before we're offing the little boys?
It’s far more sinister then murdering babies. as if anything could be more sinister. Asians think in terms of centuries whereas Americans and Europeans think monyhly to yearly at best.
They are breading a future army. An army as others have posted that will be young sexually frustrated males who will need little motivation or brainwashing to go to war. Their standing army is already a frightening number and a glimpse of 20 years hence is frightening.
In the West, there’s a saying: “A daughter is a daughter all of her life; a son is a son until he takes a wife.” The expectation is that girls will stay closer to their families, and if you’ve already been through infertility and you’re only going to have one child, then you’ll play the odds with a girl. It’s the opposite of how they think the East.
IMO people adopting are more leery of boys because of the increased potential for behavior problems. Not all children are placed for adoption because their parents are dead or too poor to take care of them; some are placed because the parents are dysfunctional, and a tendency to mental illness or behavior problems is inheritable.
Boys act out more than girls generally speaking anyway even when there are no problems, and the couples adopting are usually older and may want a child who needs less energy in supervising.
And finally, my guess is that most adoptions are driven by the wife in a couple, and there are more single mother than single father adoptions. Most women would like at least one daughter; most men would like at least one son, but if he can’t have his own son by blood, then the child’s sex probably doesn’t matter so much.
I don’t think that female-favoring sex-selection is occurring or will occur with birth children the way it is with adoptive children in the West.
breading = breeding.Don’t want no breaded male.
cannon fodderMillions of horny young men with no hope of ever finding a wife ... dangerous stuff.
When such an army launches an invasion, you can expect all the defending males to be shot and all the defending females to be captured and taken home. Plus rape, of course.
Not good.
im sure they will be traing extra hard for the olympics...
This normally leads to warfare.
While it's easy to speculate that China would create an army out of them, I tend to think not. First, it would be ruinously expensive to build, and even more ruinously expensive to maintain an army like that.
Second, it's difficult to imagine China finding a use for them that doesn't end up causing more problems than it solves. Invade Russia or India? To what end?
Finally, the soldiers aren't robots -- they'd know that they're cannon fodder, and would eventually take umbrage.
No, my guess is that one way or another they'll all be used up in China's next civil war, to which this gender imbalance will inevitably lead.
I have had several frineds who have adopted black boys for that very reason.
They are the hardest to place.
Embark on a “Homosexuality - good for the Fatherland!” campaign?
I’ll add some reality to this thread. While baby-killing is murder anywhere on earth, I am appalled by the Economist wailing about it. Liberals are the biggest criminals on earth when it comes to murdering children. In third world countries, they do this in slums because they are truly terrified of raising a girl and they see boys as breadwinners from the age of 7 or 8. OTOH, liberals do it for pleasure and to make a point. While it is murder in both cases and that fact cannot be changed, a jury would award the death penalty to remorseless killers who did it to score a political point and express hatred for Christians while they would not award death to people who felt helpless while carrying out the murder and showed remorse later.
“Young men without women to marry are good fodder for wars and terrorism.”
Either that or poster icons for encouraging gay marriage.
Maybe, just maybe one of them will marry Maureen Dowd.
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