Unnatural Selection: Chapter 2- The Parent

The chapter opens with a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "money often costs too much." I remember reading that  as I began the chapter and thinking...not seeing the connection here.


Well, I see it now.

As  I journeyed through  Hvistendahl's experience following two Chinese families as they navigated the "boys are better" culture of their respective communities, it became abundantly clear why the quote was chosen: the problem of gender selection appears when the economy of an impoverished  community improves, and approaches middle class. Mo money, mo problems...the problem being, fewer girls. Isn't that strange? In my ignorance, I had assumed that gender selection was a third world problem ( I'm almost ashamed to admit this, as it reveals me to be rather naive and culturally sheltered...yikes).

Either way this is the reality: Economy goes up, number of girls goes down. And here's another bomb that Hvistendahl drops on the reader. It's not the men in the family who are choosing to abort their daughters...it's the mothers and the mother-in-laws.

THAT. FLOORED. ME.

The first born child, if she is a girl, is usually spared, leaving the sex ratio pretty well balanced, but after that it is very typical to have 3, 5, 7 or more years between the first born daughter and the second born son. What does this mean? It means that there were likely a few pregnancies that ended after an ultrasound revealed the sex, until finally...the son arrives. And it's mom behind the wheel.

Of all the factors Hvistendahl mentioned in this chapter, the point she made about moms being the ones deciding to go through with multiple abortions really struct a chord with me. I read and reread that section of the text. See, I've got a few years of experience working with clients who've had abortion and have spent a good deal of time researching the psychology behind the choice to abort in America. To say it's complex is an understatement.

Hvistendahl points to two major reasons why women choose to abort their daughters:

" 'For women attempting to have a son and experiencing pressure to fulfill their 'womanly duty' by having a male child, sex-selective abortion can be extremely empowering..." she continues, " women know best how difficult is it to be a woman."  She goes on to note that women have become their own worst enemy.

...Their own worst enemy? Being a woman in a country like China means less opportunity even in a budding economy. Beyond that it's just "better to have boys" according to this paradigm. "If you don't have boys, you lose face" says,  Liao Li, one of the women Hvistendahl interviews in chapter two. I can only imagine what I would feel like as a woman living in that type of culture. There is a not so subtle, barely subliminal message that women are just not...worth it. And so, many women chose to abort their daughters for these reasons and others, knowing that they must have a boy for the sake of the families reputation in the community.

WOW.  

I have to say this... just throwing this out there as candidly as I can. What I read (and what I just quoted for you) shocked me, however it is MEGA important for us as folks coming from a totally different culture with a different paradigm to be sure that we don't allow ourselves to judge, to become angry, to vilify these women.

The problem of gender selection is not just the problem of individual women who would rather have sons. It is an ideology that entire cultures are literally swimming in. It's pervasive. And life as a woman is most certainly NOT the same in America as it is in other parts of the world.

The most interesting thing I've learned so far is the smallness of my own perspective. I never realized how little I knew or understood about other cultures and their problems. I have lived my whole life in America and ventured only briefly to Canada as a young 20- something to attend a youth rally... and that was almost a decade ago...eek.

My point here is that things are not always what they seem, as black and white as we'd like them to be or as easy to resolve as we'd hoped they would be. It's a little bit of a "chicken or the egg" question. What should change first? The mind of one women or the climate of a culture that rejects the value and worth of the girls they will never know? Grassroots or Global? Start big or at home? I'm going to start small, with me, my family, people that I know who've never even heard of gender selection until it becomes big, even global. I'm putting down any judgement and gearing up to learn about real people.

I've said this before, but it bares repeating: we are all in this together and this WILL BE our childrens' crisis. I think that we are all much more influenced by the culture we grew up in than we'd like to admit. Everyone wants to be a free thinker, right? My eyes were opened as I read this chapter and took a glimpse into a world that I have never known before. These issues are deep seeded and complex, but not at all hopeless.