I was delighted - at first - to see you providing coverage of the dreadful pattern of female infanticide around the world. I found the opening three paragraphs naturally moving...
"XINRAN XUE, a Chinese writer, describes visiting a peasant family in the Yimeng area of Shandong province. The wife was giving birth. “We had scarcely sat down in the kitchen”, she writes (see article), “when we heard a moan of pain from the bedroom next door…The cries from the inner room grew louder—and abruptly stopped. There was a low sob, and then a man’s gruff voice said accusingly: ‘Useless thing!’
Suddenly, I thought I heard a slight movement in the slops pail behind me,” Miss Xinran remembers. “To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail! I nearly threw myself at it, but the two policemen [who had accompanied me] held my shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Don’t move, you can’t save it, it’s too late.’
‘But that’s...murder...and you’re the police!’ The little foot was still now. The policemen held on to me for a few more minutes. ‘Doing a baby girl is not a big thing around here,’ [an] older woman said comfortingly. ‘That’s a living child,’ I said in a shaking voice, pointing at the slops pail. ‘It’s not a child,’ she corrected me. ‘It’s a girl baby, and we can’t keep it. Around these parts, you can’t get by without a son. Girl babies don’t count.’"
But do you seriously not understand what is wrong with paragraph four:
"In January 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed what can happen to a country when girl babies don’t count. Within ten years, the academy said, one in five young men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women—a figure unprecedented in a country at peace."
The worst consequence of female infanticide you can come up with is that male children won't have anything to marry? Quelle disastre!! What will they poke their penises in to? What will clean their toilets and prepare their dinner? Let's hope the robot-makers are prepared to work overtime... Vomit.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
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10 comments:
Exactly Kate! And that's a major problem with the way this issue is discussed in China - and also in the rest of the world. The problems that will be caused by men not having women to marry etc.
Forget about the numbers of baby girls killed, starved etc. And about the increase in trafficking, prostitution and forced marriages that's already happening as a result.
Surely it's just a fetus, eh?
After it's been born it's a baby girl. But do go on, you're winning friends here...
Well the Economist was speaking the truth - as seen from the male-centered perspective. Women exist solely to serve men 24/7 in whatever conceivable way imaginable. So, given there is already a dearth of women living in China for Chinese men to marry -or should that be purchase, I'm not surprised the Economist is bemoaning this fact.
As Catharine McKinnon has said frequently - 'women are not human.' Still never mind many Chinese men are already resorting to kidnapping women and 'sharing' them with their male friends. Not forgetting of course prostitution is rife in China as is trafficking of women into sexual slavery.
Some 'things' never change - men do not want girl children to exist, but men most definitely do want females to be men's sexual service stations.
Ronan - way to go - claiming girl baby was just a foetus. Obviously you did not read Economist's article because the girl baby was murdered after being born. No, don't go into a discussion of whether or not a foetus is human because we already know the answer and once again it is male-centered and is used to maintain male control over women's bodies and enforce male-centered belief that men but not women must be the ones who decide if and when a woman is 'allowed' to reproduce. Likewise it is men not women who decide under what circumstances a woman is 'allowed' to end a pregnancy. It is called male domination. This is why China and not forgetting India are two countries wherein girl babies are seen as non-human and hence can be murdered whereas boy babies because they are male automatically makes then valuable and human.
Jennifer, are arguing at some imaginary man, not me. I don't think baby girls are less valuable than males, and I don't think they're any less valued when still inside their mummy's tummy.
Some 'things' never change - men do not want girl children to exist, but men most definitely do want females to be men's sexual service stations.
Wow! Some men and women in China and India are killing baby girls, so men everywhere do not want girl children to exist. What about men like my cousin who, with his wife, adopted a baby girl from China? Yes, his wife was involved, but it was a mutual decision. Men like him are much more common than fathers who kill baby girls.
Ronan, good for you for standing up for your position in the face of hostility. I don't want to get into my somewhat complex thoughts about abortion here, since I'm a man and my opinion doesn't count anyway! I will say, though, that it is the height of arrogance to say that "we already know the answer" to a controversial question, as if one's own opinion should be the final pronouncement on the matter.
At no stage did I criticise "all men"... So you're actually arguing with yourself here. Still have fun eh?
At no stage did I criticise "all men"...
That comment was directed at JENNIFER DREW which is why I quoted her.
Her statement that"... men do not want girl children to exist, but men most definitely do want females to be men's sexual service stations," may not have meant all men but it certainly made no mention of who the exceptions are. She also didn't explain why this applies to most or even half of men, or why women who willingly participate in infanticide are not also to blame.
That is awful. I totally wasn't expecting that. I can't believe they think that a man not having a woman to marry is the real tragedy. Maybe all the men should become homosexuals and then they wouldn't have anything to worry about. What is wrong with the world today?
i read the article the woman quoted wrote in the guardian, it was completely heartbreaking.
meadester: since I'm a man and my opinion doesn't count anyway!
please, grow up! you're coming across as very whiny.
and whether you are pro or anti choice i think surely we can all agree on the fact that killing a living, breathing baby girl because girls are deemed to be no use is tragic and horrific nightmare. i don't think that all men want women dead but i do think something has gone seriously wrong when someone is able to kill a baby girl because they are seen as lesser to baby boys. why do we hate women so much? why is there this deep rooted hatred of women in the world? it is seeing a baby girl as something less than human, as something of no consequence. it's awful, tragic.
and the fact that the economist chose to see this as a tragedy in relation to its effect on men is, as kate rightly pointed out, horrific.
we owe it to our daughters to fight against this.
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