Gendercide: Planned Parenthood

Gendercide is when cultures either abort, kill, abandon, or neglect girls because of preferences to have sons. Cultures where this is common favor males over females because males bring strength and wealth to the family or provide care for their elderly parents. Boys also take the family name and pass it on to their children. Another reason for favor to males is because of marriage traditions. A marriage tradition called dowry is where the bride’s family pays the groom’s family in property and other wealth. Families do not want to lose their wealth and lose their daughter. Grown up daughters who get married aren’t any use to the family because they end up with the husband’s family. India and China are both countries where gendercide is a widespread

I think the potential social repercussions would be great if gendercide continues. There will probably be a great decline in how much women are valued and respected in society. In most if not all countries women are deemed lesser than men and it could get worse if it is not dealt with. Gendercide could spread to more countries where men are more powerful than women. Societal norms change a lot and could shift towards gendercide. Planned Parenthood which provides healthcare for women is currently trying to be defunded. I think that Planned Parenthood would cease to exist if gendercide ideas spread. No one would care enough about women’s healthcare to keep Planned Parenthood going. Potential economic repercussions could be that more is spent on war and less on essential societal things like education. I think that there could be more wars if the male population was far greater than women. I think that gender would become more separated and men would become hyper-masculine. Women would become even more dehumanized and men would feel increasingly

The film also put some first world feminist problems into perspective. We don’t have a problem with sons being favored so prevalently over daughters. I found this very hard to watch, especially when the women talked about their personal experiences. The one woman who had killed many of her female infants had a particular impact on me. She talked about how she killed them and didn’t feel any remorse. It really shocked me. I couldn’t imagine being a woman in a culture where that was normal. The woman from China who was talking about how her and her husband had to go into hiding to keep themselves and their 3 daughters save just breaks my heart. It is horrible that they can only go see their children once a year if they save enough money. They shouldn’t have to be away from their children just because they had a third child. The One-Child policy in China needs to be changed and not punished their citizens for having children. There are other ways to help control the population in a more humane