This woman’s worth. | Sepia Mutiny

From mobile ultrasound units that determine if a baby needs to be extinguished to bribery for keeping them, India now offers it all;

Families having a single girl child in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh will be given 100,000 rupees ($2,300) in an attempt to boost the female population…

…The state government says it is concerned at the falling female-to-male ratio – in 2001 it was 943 to 1,000.

The only-child receives the money as soon as she turns 20. In addition to that payola, from ages 14-17 (9th through 12th grade), a yearly grant of Rs. 1,250 will be available for the girl’s educational expenses. If either parent passes away, Rs. 50,000 is provided immediately. See? Attractive!

To ensure that the girl is a couple’s ONLY child, both parents must be sterilised;

…both parents would have to undergo operations certified and verified by government hospitals to qualify for the scheme.

Oh, and what’s a scheme without some PR?

The Andhra Pradesh government says it is also planning a major publicity campaign to promote female children.

It has named the rising Indian tennis star and local girl, Sania Mirza, as the “ambassador of the girl child of Andhra Pradesh”.

The slogan, “Your daughter may be the next champion” will be used to remind parents that girls don’t completely suck.

Indeed, that baby you kind of-don’t want very well could be the next media sensation who inspires fervent comments from clueless men in India who think that SM the blog has a direct line to…SM the tennis star.

Forgive my bitterness, but I can’t stand the “greening” of this issue. It’s always about money, isn’t it? Money for weddings, money for dowries, money for keeping a daughter– something that in other countries, is the normal thing to do. If it means that some little girl has a chance that she otherwise wouldn’t, fine, by any means necessary, I guess. But it still tastes like karela/pavaka to me.

7 thoughts on “This woman’s worth.”

i guess my comment was that either indians, indian culture, or a combination of the two is inherently against women or that, it is a result of material factors….for example money

there’s one school of thought i suppose that says “ethnicities” have innate characterstics — ie not wanting females, and another school (at least) that says that a combination of historical and material factors bring about certain trends within a given society. this particular trend is terrible but maybe it IS about money in the end?

Its easy to be pissed off about “everything being about money” if you already have enough to be comfortable or can at least be confident that you can work to get enough money to be comfortable in the future.

But if there’s no safety net, and you’re just struggling to survive and keep up than you realize that most people have their “price”….

The point is this: In a democracy you have 3 ways of getting people to do what you want. 1) Make laws against it (done) 2) Educate the Masses (lousy attempts) 3) Induce them with money (thru subsidies and taxes).

It’s really that simple. Further, one of the arguments put forth against rearing women is that they are more “expensive”. So now the AP government says fine, here’s the money to make for that expense. Frankly I think it’s a great idea, because helps out the sex ratio, and tries to reduce the population in the only way a democracy like ours (key word OURS) can.

I don’t see anything unacceptable in this scheme. In fact, it should be a welcome move in other states as well. Female to Male ratio is on a down slope in states like Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and likes, which is quiet alarming for the natural balance of species. So, in order to prevent this, such moves are appreciating.

We Indians have a kind of, following tendency and hence, the need of publicity. Until and unless, move is not supported by some big shot names, or personalities, people think a scheme to be a useless one. “Bas 2 boond” scheme for polio is backed by big names of Indian cinema and sports. And this scheme in question is done by Sania, yet another upcoming famous name. So, if government is serious about this scheme, they are left with no choice but to promote it through the hands of famous.

But, there is a negative side of this as well. All the schemes, in which money plays the center role, there are huge chances of scams. This scheme can be yet another seed for corruption, both at high level and levels, at which its applied.

But I guess, benefits would out number the disadvantages. If not for a long time, this policy or scheme is worth applying for short period, with constraints of financial status of people on whom it is applied, and to all those states, which are suffering from this decreasing F:M ratio.

One of the reasons why girl children are less desirable in many indian families is that they are believed to impose a financial burden on the parents (responsibility for marrying them off etc-rather archaic and discriminatory but this is how it is). In recent times government in India has made education for girls completely free until they get a bachelors degree etc. What this measure does (in a somewhat blatant fashion) is to say that the State is willing to take on the financial burden for girl children if parents are willing to not discriminate against them. Of course this is done in a typically heavy handed fashion, and I think it is a bad idea to couple this with a “one child only” policy.

I also agree that this is insulting and implies not too subtly that society finds girl children to be an unneccesary burden. I would also say that it would say a lot about parents who accept such a scheme.

The truth is though that among very poor families, all children are looked upon in economic and monetary terms-and boys are more desired because their labour has better renumeration than for girls or women. I have seen situations where a young boy is paid a certain amount while a girl is paid proportionally less. I admit that this itself is inequitable, but this is what happens. It is a pretty cruel world for children (especially girls) born into very poor families.

I don’t have a problem with the gov’t trying to incentivize people to have/educate daughters through $$, the part I find scary is that they have to be sterilized. That gives me the creeps.

Logically, I can see why this would be an important part of the scheme. For example, if couples had 1 daughter and 9 boys, the gender ratio would still be way skewed. (Don’t laugh – my grandparents had 9 boys in a row, and then my two aunts.)

But still, gov’t-incentivized sterilization just sets off alarm bells for me.

-D

Raju on March 11, 2005 at 11:31 am said:

i guess my comment was that either indians, indian culture, or a combination of the two is inherently against women or that, it is a result of material factors….for example money

there’s one school of thought i suppose that says “ethnicities” have innate characterstics — ie not wanting females, and another school (at least) that says that a combination of historical and material factors bring about certain trends within a given society. this particular trend is terrible but maybe it IS about money in the end?
cunniLinuXXX on March 11, 2005 at 12:02 pm said:

Its easy to be pissed off about “everything being about money” if you already have enough to be comfortable or can at least be confident that you can work to get enough money to be comfortable in the future.

But if there’s no safety net, and you’re just struggling to survive and keep up than you realize that most people have their “price”….
TTG on March 11, 2005 at 5:06 pm said:

The point is this: In a democracy you have 3 ways of getting people to do what you want. 1) Make laws against it (done) 2) Educate the Masses (lousy attempts) 3) Induce them with money (thru subsidies and taxes).

It’s really that simple. Further, one of the arguments put forth against rearing women is that they are more “expensive”. So now the AP government says fine, here’s the money to make for that expense. Frankly I think it’s a great idea, because helps out the sex ratio, and tries to reduce the population in the only way a democracy like ours (key word OURS) can.
Tushar on March 12, 2005 at 12:17 am said:

I don’t see anything unacceptable in this scheme. In fact, it should be a welcome move in other states as well. Female to Male ratio is on a down slope in states like Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and likes, which is quiet alarming for the natural balance of species. So, in order to prevent this, such moves are appreciating.

We Indians have a kind of, following tendency and hence, the need of publicity. Until and unless, move is not supported by some big shot names, or personalities, people think a scheme to be a useless one. “Bas 2 boond” scheme for polio is backed by big names of Indian cinema and sports. And this scheme in question is done by Sania, yet another upcoming famous name. So, if government is serious about this scheme, they are left with no choice but to promote it through the hands of famous.

But, there is a negative side of this as well. All the schemes, in which money plays the center role, there are huge chances of scams. This scheme can be yet another seed for corruption, both at high level and levels, at which its applied.

But I guess, benefits would out number the disadvantages. If not for a long time, this policy or scheme is worth applying for short period, with constraints of financial status of people on whom it is applied, and to all those states, which are suffering from this decreasing F:M ratio.
k on March 12, 2005 at 4:09 am said:

One of the reasons why girl children are less desirable in many indian families is that they are believed to impose a financial burden on the parents (responsibility for marrying them off etc-rather archaic and discriminatory but this is how it is). In recent times government in India has made education for girls completely free until they get a bachelors degree etc. What this measure does (in a somewhat blatant fashion) is to say that the State is willing to take on the financial burden for girl children if parents are willing to not discriminate against them. Of course this is done in a typically heavy handed fashion, and I think it is a bad idea to couple this with a “one child only” policy.
k on March 12, 2005 at 4:15 am said:

I also agree that this is insulting and implies not too subtly that society finds girl children to be an unneccesary burden. I would also say that it would say a lot about parents who accept such a scheme.

The truth is though that among very poor families, all children are looked upon in economic and monetary terms-and boys are more desired because their labour has better renumeration than for girls or women. I have seen situations where a young boy is paid a certain amount while a girl is paid proportionally less. I admit that this itself is inequitable, but this is what happens. It is a pretty cruel world for children (especially girls) born into very poor families.
deepa on March 15, 2005 at 1:35 pm said:

I don’t have a problem with the gov’t trying to incentivize people to have/educate daughters through $$, the part I find scary is that they have to be sterilized. That gives me the creeps.

Logically, I can see why this would be an important part of the scheme. For example, if couples had 1 daughter and 9 boys, the gender ratio would still be way skewed. (Don’t laugh – my grandparents had 9 boys in a row, and then my two aunts.)

But still, gov’t-incentivized sterilization just sets off alarm bells for me.

-D