Girls not wanted

[hollyandivy]

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/when-he-killed-the-daughter-inside-me-he-killed-223539936.html

 

I can't believe it! Who would do that???? And then all of a sudden playing the innocent "if we had a daughter" - yeah right, you $%#@%#%#!

[Cleopatra7]

I think the point of the essay was to show how simply being wealthy and able to afford a daughter isn't enough to prevent femicide if you live in a culture that fundamentally considers daughters to be a waste of time and energy to raise. However I do think that the wife was at a severe disadvantage in terms of advocating for herself and her girl fetus because of her lack of education and more humble background. She was seen as just an incubator while her husband and inlaws made all of the decisions about her future and whether she should give birth, without listening to her at all. Studies have shown that educated women in developing countries who are able to earn independent incomes through outside work are better able to advocate for themselves and any daughters they might have, so I do think that might have made a difference in this case.

[hollyandivy]

I just find it so unbelievably sad that this "educated" family decided that the mere existence of a girl would damage their reputation so badly that it was easier to just get rid of her. She did not even get the chance to be born.  

[HermioneSparrow]

That's horrible and it's more common than we think...

[Apricot]

How desperately sad...

[turquoise]

What a sad story. It doesn't sound like she was in a position to stand up for herself and her daughter against her husband and his parents.

I wonder, did the husband and in-laws not want any daughters at all? Or did they just not want the firstborn child to be a daughter?

Many young men in India and China aren't able to marry because proportionately there aren't enough young women. So some of these families who put such a high value on having sons, at the expense of their daughters, are not going to have the grandchildren they might have hoped for. Too bad they didn't think of that 25 years ago.

[sawasdee]

1 hour ago, turquoise said:

Many young men in India and China aren't able to marry because proportionately there aren't enough young women. So some of these families who put such a high value on having sons, at the expense of their daughters, are not going to have the grandchildren they might have hoped for. Too bad they didn't think of that 25 years ago.

This is causing a major human trafficking problem in Vietnam, where many girls, particularly from tribal backgrounds, are kidnapped and sold on to China. They are pretty helpless, as they don't speak the language, and in many cases do not even know where they are. There are also commercial matchmakers offering a Vietnamese  bride for approx $2,000, but who are often a scam.

Discovery Asia has done a couple of documentaries on their Underworld Asia series.

[Cleopatra7]

7 hours ago, turquoise said:

What a sad story. It doesn't sound like she was in a position to stand up for herself and her daughter against her husband and his parents.

I wonder, did the husband and in-laws not want any daughters at all? Or did they just not want the firstborn child to be a daughter?

Many young men in India and China aren't able to marry because proportionately there aren't enough young women. So some of these families who put such a high value on having sons, at the expense of their daughters, are not going to have the grandchildren they might have hoped for. Too bad they didn't think of that 25 years ago.

The men who are most impacted in China by the dearth of women are those on the margins of society (e.g., poor, migrant, rural, uneducated) and there are fears that these unattached, transient men are going to cause more crime, spread HIV, and possibly make the country's foreign policy more belligerent. The scholarly literature on this is muddled, however. There are lots of "moral panic" type articles about the social problems these men will cause, but it seems like most of the men are turning their frustrations in on themselves, rather than lashing out at society.