You know how some news stories grab attention and make sense on some level, yet grate away for a while leaving enough of a raw spot to require examination?
No, I’m not talking about spending any time pondering what that fuckwit Camping is thinking as he has shifted doomsday to October since he’s clearly hoping to clear a few more million before the world or his credibility finally comes to an end. (And if you happen to know anyone stupid enough to even think about sending him some dosh, have them send it to me instead. I’ll get the word out just fine, thankyouverymuch, and I won’t publicized the idiocy of handing a load of cash over, so no worries about something like this showing up in the media:
“I’ve been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I’ve been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car,” said Hopkins, 52, a former television producer who lives in Great River, New York. “I was doing what I’ve been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I’ve been stymied. It’s like getting slapped in the face.”)
What a moron … but not today’s topic …
The story that got me was this from the BBC: India’s Unwanted Girls.
India’s 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven – activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted in the past decade.
Horrible. Just horrible. But this is not a story about abortion. It’s not even a story about the illegal practice of prenatal determining of the sex of a fetus with the intention of aborting girls. It’s not about the consequences the imbalance of girls-to-boys when it becomes women-to-men, how few brides there will be, how many guys will be left high and dry and how that will impact future generations.
Nope. This is about the simple fact that in 2011 the female gender is disregarded to the point of being considered in negative value to the point of genocide, or “gendercide” as some choose to call it.
It’s not new, as Gendercide Watch makes very clear:
In many cultures, government permitted, if not encouraged, the killing of handicapped or female infants or otherwise unwanted children. In the Greece of 200 B.C., for example, the murder of female infants was so common that among 6,000 families living in Delphi no more than 1 percent had two daughters. Among 79 families, nearly as many had one child as two. Among all there were only 28 daughters to 118 sons. … But classical Greece was not unusual. In eighty-four societies spanning the Renaissance to our time, “defective” children have been killed in one-third of them. In India, for example, because of Hindu beliefs and the rigid caste system, young girls were murdered as a matter of course. When demographic statistics were first collected in the nineteenth century, it was discovered that in “some villages, no girl babies were found at all; in a total of thirty others, there were 343 boys to 54 girls. … [I]n Bombay, the number of girls alive in 1834 was 603.”
So neither new, nor improved.
The BBC’s take focuses around the availability of ultrasound technology and subsequent abortion and quotes someone who apparently didn’t study up on this history much …
Until 30 years ago, he says, India’s sex ratio was “reasonable”. Then in 1974, Delhi’s prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences came out with a study which said sex-determination tests were a boon for Indian women.
It said they no longer needed to produce endless children to have the right number of sons, and it encouraged the determination and elimination of female foetuses as an effective tool of population control.
A 1994 law outlawed sex-selective abortion, but the government has “been forced to admit its strategy has failed to put an end to female feticide.”
Well, yeah … Since laws against murder did squat to stop female infanticide, why would anyone expect this to work?
As illustrated well in my friend Rihaan Patel’s award-winning short film “The Death of Daughters” girls born does not lead to girl living. (Yeah, that’s a plug. He’s young and just getting started, so I thought I’d give him a mention.)
From Gendercide Watch:
Lakshmi already had one daughter, so when she gave birth to a second girl, she killed her. For the three days of her second child’s short life, Lakshmi admits, she refused to nurse her. To silence the infant’s famished cries, the impoverished village woman squeezed the milky sap from an oleander shrub, mixed it with castor oil, and forced the poisonous potion down the newborn’s throat. The baby bled from the nose, then died soon afterward. Female neighbors buried her in a small hole near Lakshmi’s square thatched hut of sunbaked mud. They sympathized with Lakshmi, and in the same circumstances, some would probably have done what she did. For despite the risk of execution by hanging and about 16 months of a much-ballyhooed government scheme to assist families with daughters, in some hamlets of … Tamil Nadu, murdering girls is still sometimes believed to be a wiser course than raising them. “A daughter is always liabilities. How can I bring up a second?” Lakshmi, 28, answered firmly when asked by a visitor how she could have taken her own child’s life eight years ago. “Instead of her suffering the way I do, I thought it was better to get rid of her.”
Another cultural quirk like female genital mutilation, preventing women from participating in life through bans on voting, owning property, driving, getting an education, leaving the house?
Can there be any doubt over why it’s okay for many to kill baby girls when the world has yet to come to any meaningful consensus on their worth? When the simple possession of a penis bestows esteem … no matter how stupid, useless, debauched, evil, profane or disgusting the bearer … and societies encourage this view, the issue of allowing more girls into the world can seem a silly waste of resources at best, and a dangerous game of numbers to some.
Zero tolerance for such attitudes is the only answer; international courts where offenders, both individuals and offending nations are called to account as well as local jurisdictions with the will and the power to enforce laws demanding equal treatment, equal rights. Poor countries with stone age perspective and well-entrenched customs should be sanctioned out of their socks, taken to task, forced in all possible ways to abandon the old traditions and move the female portions of their populations into the mainstream of everything.
It will happen. Not in my lifetime, for sure, but it will, and maybe even before the rapture … rupture … whatevahhh. If it does take that long, watch out, because God is going to be really pissed off at how her girls have been treated.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
According to one account, Camping and his followers spent $134 million to spread the word that the world was coming to an end — all of that money was donated to them. So what does it say we live in a world where sums like that are apparently less likely to be donated to end such practices as starving girls to death, mutilating their genitals, or setting them afire when their families are not forthcoming with dowries.
Not a hell of a lot, I’m afraid … sigh …
I read one article where a woman said, a girl is no use to me, a boy will look after me when I’m old. It’s very sad and shocking that females are perceived as useless, burdens.
This kind of news makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s appalling to see and hear the horrors taking place in every corner of the world on a daily basis. It’s appalling to see the oppression, the control and blatant disregard for life. It’s appalling to witness the powers that be or the rest of the world for that matter, ignore what doesn’t affect them because the truth is that it affects us all.
Just serves to prove what primitives we continue to be and how heads prefer to stay in the sand, dammit!
hmmm I am either very brave or very stupid to comment any article containing passages like “When the simple possession of a penis bestows esteem … no matter how stupid, useless, debauched, evil, profane or disgusting the bearer … ” I guess in many ways they are the same thing :p but here goes 🙂 First of all camping IS a fucktwat, I still believe in domsday though, I just do not think its in the Armageddon sort of way not any time soon anyway, because it will come as our sun (like any other sun) will eventually burn out, no sun no life. However I think that domsday comes upon us everyear, many times a year, just look around in what we are doing to each other, I do not think God nor the devil could do any worse, and all in all a reset of the human world would at this point probably not be a bad idea.
As for the girl abortion, well as you say girls have been messed with for ages, which I find interesting as in the fact that most cultures performing the acts are most often also the ones where females hold the highest places, I mean religiously Hinduism is full of goddesses, girls are considered a representation of the goddess Laxmi, the goddess of fortune.
The problem however when it comes to selective abortion is “freedom” of choice, if you know what I mean, if we would to put a ban on ban on selective abortion because it is wrong (which it is) then someone will come and say that we should ban all abortion because it is murder (you know the fun little people at abortion clinics with the signs and crosses) then the feminists will argue that it is their right to decide over their bodies. See where I am headed with this?
The problem is that as humans we want free will and the issue of controlling free will is that who decides if you know what I mean? does womens right over her body end if its about selective abortion?
Of course in either case if its others forcing the hand, it is always wrong. Though I would love to have power, would be interesting to see how the world would be
Okay, Bobby … I will admit you have balls and you’re not stupid … saying that …
As I said in the post, this is NOT about abortion or choice in any form. Many of the women who are aborting female fetuses would not choose to do this, but have no choice or control over any aspect of their lives, their bodies, their children, their futures. This is actually why I chose to write this at all, since the BBC piece and much of the dialog on the issue runs it onto those rails, therefore diverting attention from the truth that is widely spread cultural imperatives classifying women as inferior.
You are, of course, right about the proliferation of female gods in Hinduism, but this is the exception, not the rule, and the assessment that “most cultures performing the acts are most often also the ones where females hold the highest places” is incorrect. In reality, some of the worst offenders have no female representation of god in their theology at all, or only in inferior or subservient roles. It’s China that kills as many or more girl babies than India, and there is little in that culture that celebrates the feminine gender, and you’ll look long and hard, and in vain, for revered female deities commanding respect for the gender in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Forgive me, dear, but it feels disingenuous to me, at best, to equate the willful terminations of the lives of millions of female children with anything that can come close to a discussion about the reproductive rights of women.
As for this ‘end of the world’ nonsense … of course the sun will burn out, the solar system will break up for lack of gravitational pull or be sucked into the black hole created by our dying star, or we’ll wonk off our axis and go spinning into Mars, or Iceland will explode and block all the light for a zillion years … pick a scenario, any scenario. The tricky bit may be, however, that pin-headed morons buying billboard space will not get a rain check. It’s the arrogance of these assholes that really pisses me off … the idea that they own the patent on good and truth and right, so therefore somehow deserve something special. Actually, they do deserve something, but I’m not sure how “special” they would consider a slap upside the head with a sack full of nickels …
Thanks for jumping in, Bobby. It’s always fun to arm wrestle with a weightlifter.
Thank you on both accounts 🙂
“Many of the women who are aborting female fetuses would not choose to do this, but have no choice or control over any aspect of their lives, their bodies, their children, their futures.” in this I agree a well 99% (because there are some females who are doctrined into beliving that what they are doing is the best choice) However what I am talking about is the fact IF you where to punish selective abortion, who is to decide if it is of the women’s own choice or from social pressure? how would you distinguish the two? and again if you ban selective abortion all together then we fall back on the feminist issue if you see what I mean?
“In reality, some of the worst offenders have no female representation of god in their theology at all, or only in inferior or subservient roles. It’s China that kills as many or more girl babies than India, and there is little in that culture that celebrates the feminine gender, and you’ll look long and hard, and in vain, for revered female deities commanding respect for the gender in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.” No offense but your wrong as far as theology goes, There are s*** load of goddesses in Chinese, the most known being Kwanyin the goddess of mercy (Chinese eqvilant of the virgin mary) Afghanistan and Arabia being muslim countries, islam actually has very high regard for women. There is a own chapter in the Koran which is about the virgin mary, it is said that paradise is placed in the feet of your mother. Islam is also the ONLY secular mono deity religion that allows women to divorce as well as divorced women to re-mary. So as far as theology goes both in Taoism, Budhism, Hinduism and Islam females have a high regard. However what culture and history has made it into is a different story.
“Forgive me, dear, but it feels disingenuous to me, at best, to equate the willful terminations of the lives of millions of female children with anything that can come close to a discussion about the reproductive rights of women.” Nothing to forgive love, But as I said above sometimes the difference can easily be distorted when you pick it apart 🙂
“As for this ‘end of the world’ nonsense … of course the sun will burn out, the solar system will break up for lack of gravitational pull or be sucked into the black hole created by our dying star, or we’ll wonk off our axis and go spinning into Mars, or Iceland will explode and block all the light for a zillion years … pick a scenario, any scenario. The tricky bit may be, however, that pin-headed morons buying billboard space will not get a rain check. It’s the arrogance of these assholes that really pisses me off … the idea that they own the patent on good and truth and right, so therefore somehow deserve something special. Actually, they do deserve something, but I’m not sure how “special” they would consider a slap upside the head with a sack full of nickels …” I could not agree more, however here we come back to supply and demand, as long as someone is buying someone will sell it 🙂
LOL ~flexes~
Oooooh … you are flexing. Cute, but …
You’d be hard pressed to find many in today’s China who know diddly about Kwanyin, much less revere her, and much of modern Islam has morphed Mary’s role … as has much of Christianity. Many religions are okay with divorce and remarriage, although not the Catholics, but their patriarchal attitude is legend. If you want to talk historical religions, women have featured prominently in most, but that is so far from the present point.
Part of what I was saying in the post is how little we have moved beyond the primitive roots, this being 2011 and all.
And I’m in no way letting you get away with putting women’s reproductive rights into the same bad as female infanticide. It just doesn’t follow, Bobby, and you’re making a stretch that is too often designed to cloud the issue.
You thinking of adding “End of the world” to your line at the shop? For sure, you’ll sell the crap out of it …
It really is a sad situation in Indian villages…i mean even if you see all women power in major corporate companies or politics and IT in citites, the village scenario is not yet improved…Unless the word reaches out to the mother…the child bearing women,it is really hard to even hope for improvement…and the rootcause of this situation,i think ,is illiteracy.We in India should concentrate more on the female literacy rate than anything to improve the overall situation.
Knowledge is power!
Thanks for reading and taking the time to post a comment. Much appreciated.
Cute? I was hoping for manly, rugged, handsome, you know??
Yes but discussing pure theology is not the same as what the practitioners of the said theology do.
I agree we havent, we are still the same four legged animals we where millions of years ago, we just dress better…. well some of us do anyway….
But thats exactly the point, I am not trying to get away with it, BUT it is a valid question that does arise when this topic comes up, in what part is it ok to control “free will”. It is an issues that can not be overlooked, when something is controlled then someone will always try to stretch the boundaries of said control to encompass more, and when something is free, something will abuse that freedom. its a fact of life, Of course female sexual rights and genderbased infancide is not the same, however who decides where the line is drawn between free rights over ones body and what is wrong? cause do agree that not all share our opinion of wrong and right? hell most people do not even waste their time considering wrong and right let alone acting on it.
hmmmmm “end of world sale….everyhing must go before we do….” I like the sound of it 😀
In addition, there is another issue to think about, lets say we ban gender based abortion and punish the people who practice gender infentcide, what is exactly would the result be?? what would the life of a unwanted girl born in society that wanted to kill it but could not cause of law be like? would all of us whom deem gender based infentcide open our arms and adopt all of those girls and give them a good home and save them from the hell their lives will become after birth? or what about the ones who will be left in trashcanes after birth because abortion is illegal ? but its not that hard to leave a baby on the street at night?
Every choice has a consequence my dear, sometimes life is not as easy as right and wrong, sometimes I think we just have to go with the lesser of two evils…. sad as it is….
This is my point entirely … unwanted girls. That is the issue. We must grasp the concept of a world where such a thing would not exist. Hard to imagine, I know.
Amen to that, as I think there are only two ways the world get peace, one is for us as humans to evolve into an actual intelligent creature….you know human 2.0 some of us are still stuck in the beta version :p two is for someone who truly does grasp the right and wrong to rule the world as a iron fisted dictator :p the first I really do not see happening. I have said it before I know, but it still holds true as far as I am concerned
Or that end-of-the-world sale … that might do it!
You may just be right my dear..
I often am …
A powerful post. Thanks for the enlightening work.
Thank you.
“If it does take that long, watch out, because God is going to be really pissed off at how her girls have been treated.”
I believe She will be.
Ditto from me!
My doctor asked me if my stepdaughters had been circumcised but she had a medical term for it that I cannot recall now. No, they have not.
What happens later in many of these places that kill girl babies is there are no women to become wives and mothers in adulthood. I read an article recently about the problems in China – a man cannot get a wife unless he has money – wives have become a highly expensive commodity.
Very sad, the whole thing is very sad.
some things in the world just boggle the mind and leave me speechless. impossible to wrap my tiny brain around. male circumcision is debatable in value, but does not interfere with a healthy sex life in adulthood. why in the world would anyone devise a method of female circumcision with lifelong ramifications for that person? and the whole infanticide thing just leaves me stunned too.
The stated reasons for female genital mutilation make a very long list, and most are dammed disgusting …
several articles have come my way over the years. it is an easy conclusion that it is incomprehensible and will remain so. ignorance can sometimes be preferable to full understanding.
Yep.