The situation that’s now unfolding in China and India is a perfect example of what happens when people decide to fuck with Mother Nature in the wrong way. China and India are experiencing a shortage of women by the millions and while each country has different circumstances that caused them to arrive at the point they are at now, the result seems clear, women will be the victims of the major societal pit falls that result from such a calamity. And if you think it isn’t a calamity when there is a noticeable shortage of women present in society I think this post will render you a different perspective.
China has a population of a billion plus and it has put a strain on their economy and the resources needed to provide for them. In fact, the world population of seven billion that exists and grows every day is putting a strain on the Earth’s resources, animal species, environment and mankind’s ability to provide for everyone period (but that's a whole other post). China initiated population controls to deal with this pressing dilemma by passing a law in 1979 where couples could only have one child and if they had more they would have to pay for going beyond the one child limit.
While the law did in fact prevent the births of over 250 million Chinese the social consequences were catastrophic. With boys being the preferred sex within the Chinese culture, the practice of female infanticide became rampant and was assisted by the availability of ultrasounds, which details the sex of the baby before a woman gives birth, and abortions. Because of the 1979 law combined with a gender preference for boys China now has 32 million more boys than they do females. This means 32 million men will not have a wife and those who are poor will be the first to be shit out of luck since their lack of money will make them undesirable as husbands. Other unforeseen social consequences resulting from the one child policy in China are the buying of female children by wealthy couples to ensure their sons have daughters, the kidnapping of teenage girls for wives (since women have become scarce), the selling of children by people who have more than one child and cannot afford to pay the government's extra tax and many more consequences I cannot name. A documentary called China’s Stolen Children effectively captures these problems.
However, India does not have such policy restrictions and are aborting their females since the prevalence of ultrasound has also allowed them to discover the sex of the baby before birth. In India female children are deemed more expensive because of the dowries that have to be paid to the groom’s family when she is married and also because, just like China, the culture prefers male children. Because of female infanticide Indian men now outnumber women by 40 million. An ABC 20/20 special called India's Disappearing Daughters and a book by the same name documents India's gender imbalance. So once gain like China, some 40 million men will be without wives and poor men will suffer because they lack the financial resources to be more desirable by mates. The practice of wife-sharing is rearing its head in India, where women are being forced to have children by multiple men in one family because there is a shortage of women. India also faces the problem of higher incidences of rape, kidnap and trafficking because there are not enough women.
The patriarchal presence in both societies that do not recognize the value of female life is what continues to degrade the livelihood of women (if they're lucky enough to be born) and men in these countries. It is not surprising that women bear the burden of exploitation by the same consequences that brought about the shortage of so many of their female counterparts. Thus Chinese and Indian women are victimized twice by a society bent on their destruction (gendercide) and then by the men who exploit them because of the consequences stemming from practices of male primacy. These women are left powerless over cultural institutions and laws that have rendered their bodies as something that can be sanctioned by the state (in China) or by their husbands (India). These cultures are not initiating a strong enough change in the cultural practices or laws that are systematically erasing the female citizenry of both their countries. Sadly, the social fallout being reaped upon both societies to accommodate the shortage of women does not ring a bell to how important women are.
It's unconscionable how no one is thinking, “Well, hey, if we abort millions of females how will we repopulate the Indian race or how will our Chinese sons have a wife to marry.” They obviously are not thinking (since they love boys so damn much) about how one day their little princes will not have a bride because of the sexual imbalance that will occur because they're killing the shit out of females. I guess they will fix this problem by wife swapping and trafficking teenage girls as wives for the men who cannot find them. I’m a firm supporter of different cultural practices by other societies because we are not all the same but some practices are just plain wrong and fucked up and the practice of male pre-eminence is one that should be done away with. I hope they realize the error of their ways before it’s too late. Or maybe it already is.
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