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Heroines against gendercide
FAITH IN ACTION
By Katherine Marshall
Two statues of women dominate the central square of Hopkins, a small town in Belize. One celebrates Martina Vicente, a true matriarch figure (a sign says 85% of the town's population claim her as their ancestress). The other is of Marcella Lewis, poet, musician, writer and patroness of the town but also of the Garifuna community, a proud and distinctive ethnic group now concentrated in Central America. "She lived to love and she loved to live," says the inscription; legend has it that her spiritual force shaped all who met her.
It's not common to find a community whose memories celebrate women quite as explicitly and dominantly as the town of Hopkins. But as I explore people's personal inspiration and motivation, it's striking how often people point to the powerful influence of women, especially mothers but also teachers and other figures.
Set that in contrast to the articles in a recent Economist magazine. The cover picture has two pink booties and the headline, in pink letters, is "Gendercide." Why are 100 million girls missing, the magazine asks.
At issue is one of the most horrific patterns in modern life, the systematic abortion of female fetuses and killing of baby girls. This is a genocide so quiet that it is measured in statistical probabilities (the ratios of births of girls and boys are remarkably similar and steady across place and time so if, say, 120 boys are born for every 100 girls, someone is clearly doing something to make that happen). Gendercide is widespread, and it increases as people gain the technology to know when they expect a daughter. It creates gender imbalances that threaten to destabilize our unstable world still more.
Three forces explain the trend. One is an ancient preference for sons that is common in many societies. In the past, though, people looked to spooky practices to influence their future child's sex. Today, sonograms and other techniques offer a real way to know. And with smaller families, options for that desired son shrink: in China, notably, you have one shot only.
A sordid piece of the story is direct infanticide. We have little grip on the real numbers but many little girls are killed or allowed to die. Author Xinran in Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love describes a horrendous scene where a newborn baby girl is drowned in a chamber pot. Perhaps worse is the brutal statistic of abnormally high mortality of second and third daughters, telling a tale of neglect and abuse.
The passion for boy children is far stronger in some cultures than others, linked both to economics (boys to work the fields and care for parents in old age) and traditions of male dominance. Once the technology is available to discern the sex of a fetus, the speed with which the boy/girl imbalance has shifted has been breathtaking, especially in Asia and the Middle East. There is evidence that it also afflicts some communities in the United States.
The prospect of a generation or more of large societies contending with age cohorts where men far outnumber women is chilling. Rootless young men are notoriously prone to violence and other destabilizing behavior. Common sense suggests that the experience of skewed sex ratios will ultimately reverse the patterns so that the situation comes back into balance. But letting nature take its course, so to speak, is a very risky approach, even though there is some sign that in some countries, Korea especially, more girls are born today than a decade ago.
What really will jolt cultures out of this dangerous mix of tradition and modern technology is celebrating women, in real and meaningful ways. Where women are viewed as weak, inferior, and dependent, they are dispensable and prone to exploitation.
This is where religious leaders and communities can unite and act. They can speak forcefully on gendercide; Swami Agnivesh, leading marches against foeticide in India, sets a great example. Even more, they can celebrate women, not only in traditional roles as nurturers and loving companions but as true heroines, equal participants and leaders. They can celebrate far more the extraordinary work of women in faith communities
If we can truly achieve true equality between men and women, it's possible to imagine a far better world, where the current missing 100 million plus girls would be unimaginable. And more towns would, like Hopkins Belize, savor and celebrate the achievements of women.
Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, a Visiting Professor, and a senior advisor for the World Bank.
By Katherine Marshall |
March 22, 2010; 12:21 AM ET
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Faith in Action
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Posted by: YEAL9 | March 23, 2010 11:22 PM
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"...homicide inside... the womb."
There is no such thing as "homicide inside the womb".
That is something that you have been taught to believe.
Posted by: PSolus | March 23, 2010 12:36 PM
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Gendercide inside or outside the womb is an abomination as is homicide inside or outside the womb.
Posted by: YEAL9 | March 23, 2010 10:17 AM
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"and for every war a nation wages, I'll remember that it was the man that died in it."
That's not true. Even when women were not permitted to serve on the front lines, some can and did (those lines are fluid/some women hid their identity [American Civil War, for example]). What starts out as far "enough" away from the front doesn't guarantee it will stay that way.
Not to mention that for every war that is waged, plenty of non-combatants die--both genders, all ages.
Snippet from The Women of World War I:
"The more than 25,000 US women who served in Europe in World War I did so on an entrepreneurial basis, especially before 1917. They helped nurse the wounded, provide food and other supplies to the military, serve as telephone operators (the “Hello Girls”), entertain troops, and work as journalists. Many of these “self-selected adventurous women … found their own work, improvised their own tools … argued, persuaded, and scrounged for supplies. They created new organizations where none had existed.” Despite hardships, the women had “fun” and “were glad they went.” Women sent out to “canteen” for the US Army – providing entertainment, sewing on buttons, handing out cigarettes and sweets – were “virtuous women” sent to “keep the boys straight.” Army efforts to keep women to the rear proved difficult. “Women kept ignoring orders to leave the troops they were looking after, and bobbing up again after they had been sent to the rear.” Some of the US women became “horrifyingly bloodthirsty” in response to atrocity stories and exposure to the effects of combat."
Posted by: Skowronek | March 23, 2010 10:05 AM
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Last time I checked my history books, it was men who start and continue to start wars.
And why do we continue to give money to countries who allow females to be aborted simply because they are female?
Posted by: YEAL9 | March 22, 2010 4:59 PM
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and for every war a nation wages, I'll remember that it was the man that died in it.
Until only recently (last 20 or so years), women rarely took offensive positions in war, officially.
Millions upon millions of men died to protect women, and the land they inhabit.
Dead - never to return - like you wrote -
"it's possible to imagine a far better world, where the current missing 100 million plus (girls/women/MEN?) would be unimaginable."
Maybe something Pres. Lincoln pondered after the US Civil war.
so don't get all victim-y on us now.
this is nothing new, but you seem to think somehow now, it's time to forget all the deaths that man have sustained to save not just women, but children, the land, the ox - EVERYTHING.
Or you *could* play victims, I suppose.
Try and be more sympathetic to your male counterparts - pay them the respect you so richly want to deny them in lieu of your girl problem - maybe you'll get a town with two women statues in it, too.
Otherwise, you'll just get more apathy.
Posted by: pgibson1 | March 22, 2010 4:16 PM
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One thing that you do not mention is that the Chinese adopt out baby girls to people in the US and Canada at a much higher rate. So, they're getting rid of the girls that are born as well.
Posted by: Athena4 | March 22, 2010 12:24 PM
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I read that article in the Economist. It's a pretty disturbing problem. I suppose that supply and demand will eventually right the problem, but it's bound to cause a lot of trouble in the meantime.
Posted by: ZZim | March 22, 2010 11:58 AM
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Another reason the West is culturally superior to other parts of the world, and shouldn't be ashamed of uni-culturalism and ready to defend it against foreign influences.
Posted by: WmarkW | March 22, 2010 9:42 AM
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From Ms. Marshall's column:
"At issue is one of the most horrific patterns in modern life, the systematic abortion of female fetuses and killing of baby girls."
If indeed the systematic abortion of female fetuses is horrific, it is equally horrific for the systematic abortion of male fetuses!!!