It's a Girl...Death Sentence
Dear friends of women in science,
As some forum comments have reminded us, US has a better situation to offer women in science than many places in the world. I read a disturbing blog posting from Ram Mashru this week about the mere survival of girls so they might be able to grow up into women with career choices, here. He discussed "It's A Girl," a film being released this year, about the killing of girl babies in South Asia. The UN reports that about 200 million girls are "missing," i.e. have been killed because they are not boys. The blog said that India and China eliminate more girls each year than are born in the US.
Ram points out that the argument that poverty is responsible does not hold water. It is the more affluent families in which prenatal diagnosis and abortion are more available. He also notes that poor families where there are less cultural pressures for boys, such as in the Carribean, do not "lose" girls.
I heard a program on NPR this week about a game called "Angry Brides," directed against the demand for dowries with brides, which has been illegal in India for decades. The game originators hope that having a wide swath of society play this videogame will help move mores towards accepting that dowries are illegal and should not be demanded or paid.
Mashru, in the blog posting, argued as follows: "A solution therefore must be three-fold. Policy efforts combatting poverty must be supplemented by legal prohibitions. There must be an educational programme informing women of their rights. Finally and most importantly, there must be a social and religions campaign aimed at destroying ossified cultural attitudes." In his view, any of the three alone cannot succeed.
Let us hope that efforts can be redoubled in South Asia so that women can survive to make a choice for a career in science in the future.
cheers,
Laura
Oh yes, In Indian village sides girl babies were killed by feeding cactus wax. I'm not sure that this action is fully banned.
Yes, its the extrem situation of gender difference in south Asia. This is all the biproducts of failiour of this system, so anly awairness programmes cannot stop this brutail act and behaviour. This question is strongly related with the change of system. Last year showed the wish and need of change throughout the world. And I hope this change will also change the situation of South Asia.
Tragic, Laura. I really thought things had improved more than that. I think I'll read that book we discussed earlier, The Other Half of the Sky. And maybe start doing some kind of outreach.
