Female Infanticide and Foeticide
It is regrettable that female infanticide and foeticide are rapidly decreasing the female population throughout India. The main factors that is responsible for the increase in the incidence of female infanticide and foeticide is the low status of women, son preference, and the practice of dowry across all casts groups.
The low status of women and girls is due to cultural beliefs and the material cost they represent to their families. Vanaja Dhruvarajan says that there is a belief regarding the nature of men and women: "Men are ritually pure, physically strong, and emotionally mature; women, on the other hand, are ritually pollutable, physically weak, and lack strong willpower" (30). Because of these beliefs parents are unwilling to invest time in daughter health and education. This results in bad health, insufficient awareness, low income, low self-esteem and low status. Also, when the food is distributed within the family, the male members get the most priority than women. When food supply is short, the mother and the daughter will have to do the sacrifice and starve. In general, women are expected to be self-sacrificing. In most circumstances, women get the least priority in nutrition and health care compared to men: "In Uttar Pradesh (state), it is usual for girls and women to earn less than men and boys. Also, the survival chance for male children is greater than female children" (case study: female infanticide and foeticide). When comes to education, sons are mostly favoured and girls are sacrificed. Vanaja Dhruvarajan says that in people's minds having the girl child is like watering somebody else's plant: "Nourishment of the seedling takes place in the parental home whereas th...
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...ide cannot be resolved easily because it involve cultural, economical and social factor. Gender discrimination starts from birth or even before birth of the child itself. Females of all age face gross neglect by the society throughout their lives. The birth of a child is considered to be a debt to be paid in the future, whereas boys are considered as support at the old age. Therefore, to exempt themselves from the burden of debt and to avoid rearing the girl child, people prefer to abort the foetus in the very beginning or kill the baby after they were born.
Works Cited:
Dhruvarajan, Vanaja. Hindu Women and The Power of Ideology. Granby: Bergin and
Garvey Publishers. Inc, 1998.
"Case Study: Female Infanticide and Foeticide." Apr.,2005 < www.gendercide.org/case_
infanticide.html >.
Subramania, Lalitha. Telephone interview. 12 Mar. 2005.
Gender roles have been a predominant factor in our world since the early emergence of human societies whether they are positive or negative. They are based on expectations that societies have over the people in them. The Epic of Sunjata, shows us how men and women are treated almost equally in different forms. Women are praised for their ability to birth leaders, which is similar to the early Greek Society. In most societies, women are treated less equal than men. This was prevalent in the early Indian society. No matter the gender role, it has been shown that any society cannot survive without both men and women.
Gowda came face to face with this problem during her time in India, volunteering in the orphanage. In Secret Daughter, one of many moments of gender prejudice occurred when Jasu killed off his two children because they were girls. “We can’t do this…She will become a burden to us, a drain on our family. Is that what you want?” (Gowda 16). Jasu believed that a daughter was a burden. He had hoped for a son to carry on the family name as well as work in the fields with him. His closemindedness to the value of females was the cause of two children that were let down by their dad. When Asha was in the slum parts of Bombay, interviewing mothers, she found that their sons went to school while their daughters stayed at home with them. “Why aren’t you at school? [laughs] girls don’t go to school, only boys do.” (Gowda 109). Not only is gender inequality present throughout India, it is also being taught to little girls that it is normal. Allowing them to think that it is normal to be worth less than their male counterpart and that’s how it will always be. Another occurrence of gender inequality in the novel was when Saria told Somer that she should not go out alone without a male with her. “It is not appropriate for women like you to walk on the streets alone. You should not have gone without one of is for your own safety.” (Gowda 72). The treatment of women in India is so terrible that a woman is unable to
Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based on the predicted sex of the fetus. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children, especially in parts of Taiwan, Korea, China, and India. A 2005 study estimated that over 90 million females were "missing" from the expected population in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan alone, and suggested that sex-selective abortion plays a role in this deficit. India eliminates over half a million healthy girl fetuses annually, simply because of their gender.
Unequal access to education and health care is the last difference. Schooling is not usually offered to women in less developed countries. The rate of illiteracy in women is a considerable amount higher than men. In some countries the rate between illiterate women and men is doubled. Health care is more available for male children. Baby girls often die at birth, either from lack of health care or by murder. The disappointment of the family's newborn being a girl often leads to murder. Male children are seen as more valuable than female children in Third World countries.
In the present day there are new forms of technology being developed on a regular basis that make what was once impossible a normal reality. With this being said, many individuals throw caution to the wind and decide to take action on their every want and need. When it comes to the process of procreating and bringing a child into this world, parents can find themselves hoping and wishing for one gender over another. In order to ensure that the gender they want is what they get parents can go through variations of processes in order to select the desired gender of their baby. Many in today’s world have deemed these sorts of practices unethical and immoral and some forms of religion refuse the idea of it. Ideas centered around selecting the gender of ones offspring has been a constantly ascending issue due to the fact that it clashes between the parents wishes and what is right for the world and the natural process. Going through with gender selection processes poses the threat that the offspring will simply be mediums of their parents desires rather than the child they were meant to be. This could jump-start a trend in the direction of both good and bad selection of unborn babies features and characteristics (Robertson 3). Selecting the gender of ones unborn baby for nonmedical reasons is unethical and immoral due to discarding unwanted eggs, discrepancies regarding religion, gender bias selections and instability, and the overall disruption of the natural processes for our future generations development.
The impacts socially of the gendercide include women being married younger and younger due to the lack of suitable age females. This young marriage and the pressures on the young girls to provide families causes them to miscarriages and create harm to their underdeveloped bodies. In addition to younger marriages, high rates of prostitution become a problem. Most girls will be stolen and sold into sex trafficking. The lack of females causes male tensions to be high with no female perspective to calm down all the male testosterone in the environment. With no females to marry and love, they turn to illegal practices to satisfy their desires. The marriage of such young females also hurts their opportunity to grow and develop as women in society. They lose their chance for education, and they settle down to simply raise children. This also
In today’s day and age there are new forms of technology being developed to accomplish just about any task and make any sort of wish possible. With this being said many human beings throw caution to the wind and decide to take action on their every want and need. When it comes to the process of procreating and bringing a child into this world parents can find themselves hoping and wishing for one gender over another. In order to ensure that the gender they want is what they get parents can go through variations of processes in order to select the desired gender for their baby. Many in today’s world have deemed these sorts of practices unethical and immoral and some forms of religion refuse the idea of it. “The prospect of preconception gender selection appears to pose the conflict—long present in other bioethical issues—between individual desires and the larger common good. Yet doing so leads to the risk that children will be treated as vehicles of parental satisfaction rather than as ends in themselves, and could accelerate the trend toward negative and even positive selection of offspring characteristics” (Robertson 3). In this argumentative essay I will be going through the different areas of controversy surrounding this particular topic and focusing on the immorality of such an act.
Women are frequently malnourished since women are normally the last member of a household to eat and the last to receive medical attention. Women in India receive little schooling, and suffer from unfair and biased inheritance and divorce laws. These laws prevent women from having financial assets, making it difficult for women to establish themselves.
The newspaper article for this concept would not be appreciated to the human males. As, it is just the human intellect that separates the humans from other animals and make them socialized. So, infanticide can not be seen as the reproductive strategy for all the times, but, only when its effect is kept aside.
First, the pregnancy without readiness because the teenagers has sexual relation “premature” because nowadays it has communication is easy and comfortable. It make teenagers can getting to know it easier and sometime the women it may be deceptive in a way that is not good, for example indecent, fraudulent. Especially the pregnancy has not ready is in school because the women may be problem in social is drop out of school (Growing up global, 2005 p.540) Because of poor academic and the lack opportunities in economic not only economic but also is good occupations and social is good the children of mother have not finish it becomes problem side working, such as cheap labor in the factory. Perhaps someone is pregnant in school have an abortion in the school it help open opportunity for continue to study for the future. Sometime, husband and wife the protection of sexual relation has failed from process condom for example using low quality materials. The causes of the family it reason why want to abortion because not ready take care a baby is born.
Why are Indian women and children so venerable to this condition? Evidence suggests that colonialism, high population, intents poverty, low educationa...
For the duration of time, society perceives men as superior, which infused to their cultural aspect in life. Society instilled male dominance to the minds of young children, imposing a role each sex must play. Girls are slaves of society, submitting to men as their master. And child brides are a perfect way to exhibit patriarchy society (Ludden). The young girl would be married off to take care of her own family, crippling them in attaining an education and getting a job. Girls were not meant to work (Radu). It is also said that the purpose of marrying off girls young was to keep their attractiveness. Roberta Radu says, “'Virginity is an "asset" that families customarily trade for substantial sums of money, so marriage is arranged as early as possible in order to preserve the girl's "desirability". Out of all of these inducements money was the biggest factor. Parents would arrange their daughter marriage due to poverty. The bride’s family would receive a dowry, basically trading girls for money. Again, girls were burdens and the parents used child marriage as a relief...
“ Being a Motherhood is a choice you make every day, to put someone else's happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you're not sure what the right thing is...and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.” MMMMM. Being mother is one of the most blessed and the most challenging job in the world. Giving birth to a new life and making it walk through the new world holding its hands showing a good trail makes a mother victorious in her life. In this modern world women’s attitude against pregnancy and being a mother is changing accordingly. There occurs so many miscarriages and maternal death during the pregnancy. A woman should be physically, and more over mentally set to have a baby in her womb. Considering the biological fitness of health it’s said that safer age to be get pregnant is in between 20 to 29. Early pregnancy in the teenage age of 13 to 20 and the delayed motherhood age after 35 is challenging to the health of mother as well as the birth of the child causing currently social issues India.
Amanda Hitchcock. 2001. “Rising Number of Dowry Deaths in India.” Annual Editions: Anthropology 11/12, 34th Edition. Elvio Angeloni. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Arranging a marriage for a young girl is a simple way for the family to collect dowry money. For families living in poverty this is something they looked forward to since the birth of their daughter. Furthermore, having one less mouth to feed makes supporting the remaining children less demanding on the parents. In addition to financial reasons for the practice, in times of war an arranged marriage is a way to ensure that the child bride remains safe and out of harms way. An important aspect of most religions is purity. “The very idea that young women have a right to select their own partners—that