For many couples, having a baby is a blessing. Families and friends hold baby showers to celebrate the life of the expected child. They decorate rooms and give gifts in pastel pinks and blues, parading the baby’s gender. Meanwhile, in many areas of India, pastel pink is becoming a rarity as aborting female fetuses becomes a popular practice with the rise of a cultural male preference. This atrocity is causing an imbalance in the gender ratio, taking an unsightly number of infant lives, and is still a continuing practice even though it has been addressed as a national disgrace.
Despite hundreds of years of previously practicing gendercide the rise of new technology has caused the gender gap to skyrocket. The female to male ratio has risen at
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A complete reversal in the natural mortality rate of men and women further proves how extreme the practice of gendercide has gotten in the country (Ferguson). India has disrupted its natural female to male balance so horrifically that child brides are being imported to the country to marry strangers who couldn’t find a wife in their villages due to the lack of women and overabundance of men (Anonymous). Knowing their daughters will be sent away to live with their husband’s family at a very young age makes it uncommon for the families of female children to develop strong relationships with their female children (Epstein).
Another reason for a rising male preference in the country is the payment of dowries. Upon marriage, it is a cultural expectation that the family of the bride pay dowries to the family of the groom whether it be in money, cattle, or property (Vargas). Giving birth to a boy removes the pressure of having to pay the significant cost of dowries and instead allows the family to receive money as well as bringing an additional helping hand into their
No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality (Eitzen, Zinn, and Smith 2012). Every society treats women and men differently. Research shows that sex and gender are entirely separate concepts, yet, society lumps them together and the terms oftentimes are used interchangeably. We can distinguish that sex indicates biological differences between males and females, and gender assigns cultural and social behavior based on sex. However, everything in society is needlessly gendered; advertising, occupations, institutions. Society makes gender a huge factor that determines what roles children and adults alike fulfill. This fosters a culture where roles are pre-fabricated for us, somewhat eliminating free choice, and limiting
Amniocentesis and ultrasound techniques are the most common ways for couples to determine the sex of the child before it is born. In the US, such tests are routine and not usually alarming, but in nations such as India and China those tests, and others, have become an issue of debate since the results could mean life or death. Until the 1980’s, people in poor countries could do little about their preference for sons before birth, ...
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
Gender-based violence is made possible by the ideology of sexism in Indian traditional culture which argues that women are worth less than men in the sense of having less power, status, privilege, and access to resources that is more prevalent in middle class and low caste families.
Gender discrimination in salaries, employing, or promotions persists to be a substantial aspect in the workplace, culminating into a palpably unrelenting wage gap. The media's contribution to the crescendo of body dissatisfaction and corrupted self-image in modern patriarchal societies is causing drastic increases in dangerous practices. More women are steadily at risk of facing violence from family members, the community, and even their husbands. The only way we can hope to combat sexism and objectification is through eliminating our adoption of traditional gender roles, reshaping the patriarchal framework constricting our movements, and striding towards more egalitarian principles, shattering the paradigm. The primary battles may have been won, but now it is our turn to bring ultimate equilibrium. Together, we can eradicate gender discrimination and help women to achieve the lives of men, and we shall finish the war on equality at
Culture tends to play a large role when it comes to defining an individual along with their complete beliefs and thoughts towards specific notions. An individual adapts to their culture generally from their closest family members such as their parents and siblings. Therefore, an individual’s family influences a woman’s decision on her future (Shah 2011: 10). The mother and father have the ability to influence a child’s entire belief system along with other close relatives. The perceptions that parents have on their children’s interests are essentially responsible. Some cultures do not approve or allow for a female to act on her masculine pursuits. Women who grew up with masculine interests and were allowed to act on those interests differed from the women who were traditionally
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...
Torri, Constanza, Maria. (2009) Journal of International women’s studies, Abuse of the lower caste system in India Vol 11, access14/03/2011
“ 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.
Society has females and males alike typecasted into roles which have basic characteristics that are the reverse of each other. Although this has begun to change over the past thirty years, typically the man was seen as superior to the female. This superior image is one that today, is slowly on its way to being reduced to one of complete equality between the two genders.
For women in India, the last century has marked a great amount of progress, but at times it has been as stubborn as all the centuries before it. Women have been expanding their roles in society, at home, and even politics with female Prime Minster Indira Gandhi. Gender roles are ingrained deeply, however, and that is no more apparent than in the current rape epidemic. Specifically the last 40 years have been some of the most promising for Indian women, but they have also seen an 875% increase in rape cases (Park). The answers to why this is happening, and why it is happening now may open up a much deeper issue. The social climate is changing; a power struggle between genders steadies the quantity of violence against women. Meanwhile, their empowerment to speak out and hold a rapist accountable brings it to the attention of the world. A longstanding injustice that has been occurring right bellow the surface for years may have reached its boiling point.
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
A birth of either a boy or a girl is considered to be an event to be joyful about in the family, since what matters is that a child has been born (Infante 16). In some cultures though, it is seen to be slightly more biased in favour of male children as they would pay a midwife a slightly greater money on a birth of a boy. One trait that was noticed not only in the Philippines, but also all over Asia was that the families always preferred to have a male child rather than a female (Dolan). But despite that, some ceremonies and cultural practices in the past shows the primitive attitude towards children that suggested equal consideration for either sex (Infante 17). Women were given the task to hold the money and pay for bills, which to some degree gave them the power of the purse (Dolan). They also had the right to choose who to marry. Women were able to decide to divorce with their male counterpart without any costs. Women were able to take on political authorities in the society and it became a central role for them. A shift in gender roles began to rise during the arrival of the Spanish (Perez). Since the Spanish colonial period, a tradition was established of making the women inferior, which was observed to be extracted from women because of their submissive attitudes (Dolan). This became a solid footing on making women inferior to men in the
As time and culture has advanced, society has become more accepting and inclusive of gender expression, roles, association, and identity. One’s gender identity refers to their own concept of self as female, male, or both (and sometimes neither). Gender identity correlates to what individuals call themselves and how they perceive themselves internally. Not only does gender involve identity, but it also involves expression. Gender expression refers to the way in which an individual shows their gender to the world and to society. Gender expression can be shown through style of dress, change of voice, lifestyle, and physical appearance. It is important to understand that gender identity can be the same or different from one’s assigned sex at birth. It is also important to understand that gender and sexual orientation, which are often confused, are different. While gender refers to how an individual sees themselves, sexual orientation refers to who an individual is attracted to (both physically and emotionally) and spans beyond the personal aspect of gender. A