13 January, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I’ve wanted to write about this story but until today I have not been able to give any sort of syntax to the rage I feel. I’ll give it a try…
A recent Chinese government report detailing the huge imbalance between the number of males and females in China is too sickening and tragic for me to even wrap my mind around. And unbelievably, the problem has gotten worse since 2000. There are now on average 118 newborn baby boys for every 100 girls; in rural provinces it’s as high as 130 boys for every 100 girls. By 2020, there will be 30 million more men of marriageable age than women.
While every major news organization in the US and Britain has reported on the Chinese government report that contains this horrific information, the focus of the news coverage – not surprisingly – has been on how this lack of women will inconvenience men. This is what has made this ongoing problem newsworthy all of a sudden. This has been what’s prompted the government to take action. Thirty million men will not be able to find wives, the news reports gasp, causing widespread social instability. The rulers of the Communist Party are panicked, fearing what this will do to their grip on power. You see, until something affects men, it’s not really a problem.
Many of the news headlines state there’s a “wife shortage” (again, this is looking at the story from the male viewpoint) and behold this subhead from ABC News, which is characteristic of the way much of the media is handling this story: “By 2020, There Will Be 30 Million More Men Than Women — Making It Hard for a Guy to Find a Bride.”
Making it hard for a guy to find a bride? WHAT THE FUCK? How about this headline instead, ABC News:
“World’s Most Populous Nation Exterminates a Sizable Portion of Its Female Population: Catastrophe to Follow.”
How do people lose sight of the real issue here so easily? The real issue is not that 30 million men will not be able to find brides. The real goddamned issue is that there are 30 million women missing. And where the hell are they? [The missing female population is roughly equal to the population of Canada.]
According to the news reports, which just sort of gloss over this pesky aspect of the story, the gender imbalance is being attributed to sex-selective abortions. While this probably accounts for the fact that there has been an increase in the gender imbalance in recent years, it ignores China’s long and well-documented history of female infanticide wherein millions of female children have been murdered by their parents. Millions of female children had the very life strangled or smothered or squeezed or kicked or beaten right out of them simply because they weren’t born with a penis. Their very femaleness was their only crime, deemed so abhorrent that their lives were ended because of it. This happened on a widespread basis across the country and it continues to this day, despite the more clinical spin the officials and the media want to put on it.
But according to ABC News and their ignorant counterparts, what really matters is that a guy can’t find a bride.
Perhaps it’s just me, but this gender-based form of genocide — femicide? — is one of the greatest atrocities in human history. And soon the Chinese will suffer the consequences of their actions. Why don’t the media grapple with this instead of running flippant headlines that make light of a grotesque tragedy the likes of which the world has probably never seen?
See, I told you I was filled with rage. Deep cleansing breath…
As a woman, what haunts me is the thought that millions and millions of women have actively participated in killing their own daughters or have aborted a fetus because it is female – and by extension, contributed to the obliteration of their own gender. I do not mean to imply that a man’s role in this is any less devastating. Obviously not. My point is that the level of self-hatred evident in the actions of a woman who would participate in this makes an unimaginable act even more unimaginable. It speaks to the horror of what many of these women’s daily lives must be like. Clearly, in the world many of these women inhabit, to be female is to be disposable. What must it be like to live with the knowledge that you are worth nothing? That you are rubbish? [And can literally be thrown out with the rubbish?] I wonder if many of these women feel that to end the life of a female child or to prevent one from ever being born is an act of mercy?
Tags: china, infanticide, gender imbalance
Anglofille said @ 4:42 pm | feminism, news & politics |
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Could you provide some specific links to official reports/investigations into the infanticide of females in China?
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Human rights in China? It’s no news but an ongoing form of oppression against the underprivileged in China.
Talking about Holocaust, you should take a look at Cultural Revolution and its effects, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. Both of which are dealt under the pretext of liberation. BTW, just to let you know, in these articles citizens were Communist Party members. Average people do not count in their system.
Infanticide is nothing new, it’s been practiced primary in the Third World country for several reasons. First, traditional culture values male more than females. Second, male is more physically fit than females when it comes to labour (i.e. farming, chores, etc.). So, naturally people prefer to have males than females.
Yes, a majority of Chinese still lives under impoverishment in China. Not everyone is given the same rights to live in the cities.
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Did you read this?
In officially colorblind France, blacks have a dream - and now a lobby
I’ve read that French government heavily segregates when it comes to politics. Only “pure” French nationals are allow to attend special French political schools, out of which they usually become Presidents, and Member of the Parliament, etc.
Being living in Paris for long, I wonder if you’ve felt the same?
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David: I just did another posting on this topic, which contains all the research that I had. It’s impossible to get any sort of solid statistics on infanticide, given the nature of the act, the fact that it is usually carried out in rural areas and given that the government apparently turns a blind eye because of the one-child policy.
Speed Demon: I’ve only lived here since September and because my French isn’t great, I follow the news in English. I’m not sure about political segregation, but France is a very segregated country. The suburbs are filled with poor immigrants of color who reside in government housing. They experience high unemployment and discrimination, which sparked the riots last year.
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rebecca Says:
January 15th, 2007 at 4:41 amIt is interesting to note that years ago when I was in French in high school, my teacher had a subscription to French Elle. In one of these issues (sadly I don’t remember which one) a reporter was in a rural village in China when she noticed something in the gutter of a street. Determining that the baby girl had died hours before, she hid in an area with a plain view of the body. It was assumed that the baby was “disposed of” due to it being female. She watched for hours, wondering what the people in the town would do. For hours on end, these people walked by, glancing down at the baby and most completely ignored it. Some would crouch down to check if the baby was alive, but most actually just toed it with their shoe. Finally, an elderly man bent over, picked it up, and tossed the body in a trash bin. There were pretty graphic images in the article, and loads of information about infanticide of female babies in China. I cried when I read the article.
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not to be one of *those* people, but perhaps there’s a better word to use than Holocaust… I would suggest “mass murder”? the two terms really aren’t synonymous, in my opinion. But that’s just an opinion.
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Jay Says:
January 31st, 2007 at 6:52 amNot to discuss the number you have posted but to give more information on the subject
1) It is illegal in China for the doctor to tell the parents the gender of the child before birth to reduce gender selective abortion (this sais I agree that young girl babies are murdered in some cases), but as any law I am sure it is broken.
2) As another poster metioned this is quite a standard practice in the develloping countries, indeed India has the same problem (more men than women) and it does not have a one child policy. So this is not a political issue but rather a social one.
