Our site administrator Paul tips us off to an article over at the BBC today that highlights a unique new program launched by the government of India:
The Indian government is planning to set up a network of cradles around the country where parents can leave unwanted baby girls.
The minister for women and child development, Renuka Chowdhury, told BBC News the cradles would be “everywhere”.
It is the latest initiative to try to wipe out the practice of female foeticide and female infanticide. [Link]
In my opinion anything that will help mitigate the foeticide and infanticide scourge is a good thing, but the imagery of little cradles set up around the country is kind of bittersweet.
“We will have cradles strategically placed all over the place so that people who don’t want their babies can leave them there,” Ms Chowdhury told the BBC News website.
The cradles could be in places as diverse as the local tax collector’s office, or where local councils meet.
Ms Chowdhury said parents would be able to leave their babies secretly. The important thing was to save their lives…
“They will be collected and put into homes,” she said. “There are plenty of existing homes and we will be adding some more also…” [Link]
Apparently there is actually a precedent for this type of program (in Japan):
The drop-off at Jikei Hospital in southern Japan will consist of a small window in an outside wall, which opens on to an incubator bed, officials say.
Once a baby has been placed inside, an alarm bell will alert staff. [Link]
Hatred of Australia and joy at their defeat unites the entire Commonwealth of Cricket Shodan. I’m hoping for an England versus India final with Monty and Bopara heroics and an England victory.
Apologies for the continued threadjack, why would anyone care about an English victory, the Brits don’t care about cricket anyways and are too busy cheering the EPL. Cliche as it is, and Indo-Pak final would be the best (if nothing then in terms of the number of people who would be excited about the match) and guess an Indian victory with Sachin on fire would be manna.
Looks like women aren’t living well past men in India. Also if U.S. and India have similar at birth sex ratios, it would suggest that female infanticide rather than abortion is the cause. In U.S. Under 15 ratio is the same as at birth where as its greater in India.
Go Windies!
Anyone but Australia would be good for cricket, dessicated as it recently is by the banal Aussie dominance. Credit to them though: they love the sport. I was in downtown Syndey during the ’04 India-Australia test, and burly red-haired men waxed exultant whenever an SMS message announced a wicket.
Ardy, I’m from England and I support them because there are three desis in the team and I love that – they represent at least a symbolic coming of age for the desis in this land.
England loves cricket although football is the more popular game.
Question for the doctors/medical folks out there, apologies if it’s been already asked,
What is the time window to make such a decision? That is, how much time between the ability to discern gender and the time when abortions become unperformable ?
“England loves cricket although football is the more popular game.”
i would say england loves test cricket, not so much odis. in fact, whenever the ashes roll around, it’s annoying to hear the english go on about how they only care about test cricket and odis (referred to as pajama cricket) doesn’t mean anything and the ashes are the be all and end all of world cricket rivalry. but the minute they win a odi match against australia, suddenly they’re the second favourites to win the world cup 🙂 test cricket still is the essence of cricket, but that’s no reason to put down odis just because your team is not the best at it.
have no great love for the australian cricket team, but one thing you have to admire – they put their all into every match, no matter what. they are big game players, so i wouldn’t read too much into their recent failures (although if they miss brett lee and a few other key players, then their world cup repeat hopes are in danger). india is looking decent, if still a little shaky, but they have the knack of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory sometimes (but their run at the 2003 world cup was incredible . sri lanka, to me, is the strongest subcontinental team.
I don’t agree that England fans think the OD game doesnt means anything, but they definitely place more of an emphasis on the tests, but the OD game is not considered to be ‘nothing’. It’s a good thing that England got a boost by winning the tri-nation series, it shows that there is regard and kudos in the OD game both amongst fans and players, and good that some people have got light headed in victory and now think that they can win the WC even as outsiders — I want to see every team of standing thinking that, so we get positive and exciting cricket.
I would say this (and I am not even English 🙂 ), in recent times I have enjoyed test cricket more than one day cricket. With the whole stress on run scoring, a lot of one day cricket has become a primarily batting cenetered game while in test the contest is still a lot more even. The worst thing about tests in the 80s and before was that many of them ended in a draw. Now with a lot more aggressive style of play (thanks to the ODIs), test matches usually end in a result and are a lot of fun.
Frankly, the 20/20 idea does not excite me much!
“I want to see every team of standing thinking that, so we get positive and exciting cricket.”
oh, i agree. england have as good a shot as anyone else (amongst the traditional cricket powers) and it’s great to see this attitude from them and everyone else (and i think players like monty really add to that optimistic positive attitude). but comments by many england fans (other than barmy army types and some equitable fans) on most of the major cricket boards during the ashes and even during the last world cup (during that whole zimbabwe fiasco) show a certain derision towards odis or maybe a pretend derision because the team lags in odis. anyways, best of luck to england on their world cup campaign and i can’t wait for the action to begin (am hoping a local cinema that shows indian movies will show the world cup matches – great (and tense) atmosphere between the rival fans I’m told)!! (sorry for continuing the off-topic comments).
If you’re a girl growing up in the West, why would you seriously consider a groom who would mistreat you this way if you have to option to go outside your culture?
Because there is an underlying (and frequently correct) assumption that not every male in your own culture is a repressed misogynist.
Meanwhile, back in Amreeka.
I have to go now, but a few comments.
Infanticide is intentional. I doubt Indians routinely kill of their babies. That is a strong charge to make.
There’s some interesting statistics on the child sex ratio in India here .
From the paper:
The statistics suggest that more boys than girls die in India within the first year of birth. After that, during the 1-5 year range, there’s a sharp increase in the number of deaths among girls. This suggests that the cause for the declining sex ratio is not deliberate infanticide, but issues such as a cultural attitude of neglect towards the girl child.
There’s also a v interesting paper here that looks at the current and historical reasons for the skew in the sex ratio in India.
What the Indian government needs to do is ease the bureaucratic nightmares one has to go through to adopt a child from India especially if you are not a resident. IMO, that is one field China is way ahead of India.
I don’t see a direct correlation. I don’t think families are aborting children out of fear that no one will adopt them. The thing is, Indian society doesn’t regard adult life as an individualistic pursuit (by more or less forcing all kinds of important life choices onto people, career choice, mate choice, etc…), Why is it going to regard the life of an fetus or infant from an individualistic perspective?
Man, I don’t want to start a new branch of the “Western-born” vs. “In the Desh” battle on this thread. Of course the vast majority of Indian men will treat their wives with respect and kindness. I absolutely did not mean to suggest that “every male” who strongly identifies with Indian culture would, for example, expect his wife to abort a female fetus.
But.
A lot of evidence has been presented in this thread that indicates that selective abortion is a real issue in India. Clueless has anecdotes and risible has some data indicating that this issue has carried over to the diasporic communities in Canada. I have no doubt it exists to some degree in the communities in the United States too. Is it that hard to believe that a person born in the West with Western cultural values would be a bit wary about very traditional Indian mates if they perceive this mindset to be a real possibility?
The point of my post was not that Western-born Indian people necessarily should be turning their backs on their mother culture. But I do think that the disconnect between cultural assumptions about women make some people uncomfortable about marriage within the diasporic community, and it will continue to do so.
It doesn’t necessarily have to mean that the husbands are repressed misogynists either. It’s about cultural assumptions about women. In my experience, ideas about a woman’s “appropriate” role may be indifferently promoted by husbands, but are strongly pushed by other cultural actors (for example, religious leaders or older women) out of a sense of propriety. The issue is not necessarily that you’re marrying someone who might promote these practices, but that you’re tying yourself tightly to certain traditional gender roles and assumptions about the relative value of men and women. I don’t think it’s unfair to assume that, as more and more “confused” Desis are born in the West, there will be more people who are uncomfortable with that outcome.
I don’t think it’s unfair to assume that, as more and more “confused” Desis are born in the West, there will be more people who are uncomfortable with that outcome.
Understood, but there are gender stereotypes and assumptions about gender roles in non-diaspora communities as well. Those stereotypes are often just as limiting, although they manifest themselves in less obvious ways. In some ways, the non-desi gender assumptions are more invidious simply by virtue of appearing more benign on the surface.
I’m not saying that any of the Western gender limitations are worse than female feticide, of course. Merely that going outside the community effectively replaces one set of gender assumptions with a different set.
Contrary to what Clueless and others have indicated, I have to admit to not having observed any anti-female child bias among my own group within the diaspora. Obviously, this is completely anecdotal, but in fact, I have observed the opposite, i.e. more couples choosing to have just one child, without concern for gender. It may just be that increasing distance from the cultural/religious mores in India makes it possible to for men and women to reject what they don’t like.
HMF regarding #166, Agreed that in Indian society less consideration is given to the individual. But still its more practical to concentrate on the children on hand and helping them get adopted, that way they can make room for the kids that this cradle scheme will bring in.
Just a general observation: The wait to get a boy through adoption is much shorter in India than the wait to get a girl. You would think with all the problems with female infanticide and such it would be the other way around.
Obviously, this is completely anecdotal, but in fact, I have observed the opposite, i.e. more couples choosing to have just one child, without concern for gender.
I’ve noticed the same trend. Also, marrying across caste and regional lines, which is the major break, after which everyone is picking and choosing from their half-remembered folkways, transmitted so long as the elders are around. Your Indian “culture” becomes a laundry list of whatever motifs, values and symbols you as a couple are amenable to, integrated into a dominant western sensibility.
This is absolutely true. However, I would argue that these Western gender assumptions also contain a fairly long history of challenge which is less prevalent among Desis. Feminism has hardier roots in the West than it does in the Desh (note: I’m NOT trying to imply it doesn’t exist there). Of course, individual Desi families vary in the degree to which they incorporate feminist ideas and adapt them to more traditional gendered values, as do individual Western ones.
All of that said, there’s a problem of sample size too. Are you more likely to find a supportive set of cultural assumptions about gender (limiting it to that for a minute) in the small universe of “suitable” Desi families or the wider population?
I personally have seen unequal treatment of men and women, particularly younger boys and girls. This may simply be due to the fact that my parents are Swaminarayans and that tradition has weird gender ideas, but I’ve definitely seen unequal treatment being “justified” by religion (particularly in the mandir itself).
But yes, hopefully being further away from the source of these traditions will embolden immigrants to forge their own values. I know that my parents have, for the most part, supported my sisters as much as they have me (or at least subjected them to the same kind of unreasonable pressure 😉 ).
having worked extensively with low-income teen mothers in the Bay Area, i’ve witnessed the difficulties these young women face on multiple levels. when they go unsupported by families or boyfriends, they just feel overwhelmed with sorrow. for better or worse, many have expressed to me their wish that they had known about the following law:
“California’s Safely Surrendered Baby Law allows parents to drop off unwanted newborns at any emergency hospital or fire station within 72 hours of birth. Parents who choose either option or call 911 to have a paramedic pick up the child could reclaim the baby within 14 days. Otherwise, the child would be placed in a foster or pre-adoptive home.
Parents who follow the surrender law cannot be arrested or prosecuted for abandonment as long as the baby has not been abused or neglected.” (http://www.ktvu.com/news/8436176/detail.html)
while i would hope there would be more support for the rearing of girl children in india, i hope that the cradles lead to a save haven for the girls.
It sounds all skewed. What will they do if no one wants them. Send them back from where they came or to bal bhavans or children’s homes towards an uncertain future. These policies sound good on paper and not in real life. Instead the Minister should focus on educating girls so that when they marry they work towars their own welfare.
Alot of desi who live in the United States don’t understand what it is like in the big desi communties in Canada. The desi population in Vancouver area is almost 10% of the whole population. I don’t think one major market in the United States has desi or south asian population even more then 2%.
Here in Vancouver 85 to 90% of the desi population is from Punjab. And alot of these people come from the village or don’t have the education level of desi’s in the USA. This has made it easier for the punjabi community to keep many of there old values from the homeland. The sexism here in the desi community in Vancouver is off the charts. And as a father of an 8 year old girl it worries me about raising my daughter here.
Great discussion so far.
I assume that the majority of SepiaMutiny (which usually bleeds liberal on most issues) supports abortion on demand, Roe, etc.
Given the above, I find it interesting that posters are decrying sex-selective abortion and want it banned. You support having the abortion option but wish to curtail how it is used. [And, I’m not talking about people who are forced by their husbands or families to have an abortion.]
So, If (as many of you may argue) abortion is simply a woman’s choice, why can’t sex selection also be just a personal choice, regardless of the potential economic and demographic outcomes of this choice.
I’m pro abortion when it comes to stupid 17year old skanks who should not be having babies.
Heck I think there should be a program in every high school in which the principal, teachers and other educated people determine which of there male students will not amount to anything in life. Those male students should be forced to get a vasectomy for the betterment of the human race.
Wow. What were you saying about sexism?
Eugenics too? Nice one mate.
[And, I’m not talking about people who are forced by their husbands or families to have an abortion.]
But that is the critical issue with respect to abortion, at least in my view. It’s a question of the personal autonomy of the woman. If a woman is being forced to have an abortion by others because of the gender of her child, she isn’t exercising personal autonomy anyway. In fact, the exact opposite happens, i.e. she effectively surrenders her autonomy in order to satisfy the goals of others.
Personally (but I could be wrong), I can’t see the vast majority of women aborting their fetuses on the basis of gender solely through the exercise of their own free will. If this happens, it is almost certainly because other pressures are brought to bear on the decision.
Sorry about my last comment, I think I want alittle too far.
But back when I was high school, it was easy to guess who the few teenage mothers were gonna be. Girls that were not honor students. And they had sperm donars who almost 15 years later have not amounted to anything in life. I want to high school with this one idiotwho was in and out of jail the last decade but was able to spread his seed with a few women who only talent was having babies.
Wow, Clueless, that is really extremely painful to hear. Unfortunately, you have just insulted a huge proportion of children who probably were unable to benefit from the same advantages in education that was perhaps afforded to you.
I work with teen mothers who may not have made the wisest decisions leading up to their pregnancies– but many come from abusive households, exist in dependent relationships with useless men, were not educated about birth control, and much more. My teens are survivors– they have their children and still make it to school every day in order to get their diplomas. They are resilient young women whose paths have forced them to become wise beyond their years. Believe me, they understand the significance of their decisions.
Perhaps you should stop making extremely eggregious, sexist, and classist assumptions about girls who are not on the honor roll. For you to have “guessed who the teen mothers were going to be” demonstrates more about stereotyping and sexism than anything else.
Two issues. First, it’s possible to support the legalization of a technique even if some uses of that technique are abhorrent. I think abortion is abhorrent unless it’s responding to dire circumstances (either in terms of biology or socioeconomic factors). But I think it should be legal because the consequences of forcing a woman to bear a child in those dire circumstances is far more morally repugnant.
I think that in any country with legal abortion, some people will use the right to horrible ends. They will end pregnancies on flimsy reasons, one of which is the gender of the fetus. But if that’s the price for allowing the vast majority of women to terminate pregnancies for perfectly valid and sympathetic reasons, I think it’s a price society must pay. However, I do believe that most women who terminate pregnancies based on gender are coerced by family members, and I don’t think this should be legal.
yirsings once again I’m sorry about my comments about teenage mothers. When it comes to teenage preganices I blame the father more then I blame the mothers. I spoke or in this case before I typed before I thought what I should have said.
But alot of these teenage fathers never ever take care or provide for the child and it is real frustrating.
162:
Likewise, my trollish friend : I am not particularly thrilled about sharing my DNA with you either.
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SM Intern, are you awake? Or should we take that #162 is fully compliant with your comment policy and that it’s OK to abuse Indians in general?
Clueless, you DO have a clue. What is truth? The truth can be brutal, but living in denial is even more brutal. I don’t know about India, the social reality is quite different there–children mean hands to work for the family. However, here in the U.S., “skanks” (I think we’d agree on the meaning) of both genders and all races, are more often than not, the most prolific and irresponsible procreators on this already very stressed out planet. Maybe it’s ego, the urge to engender their sorry selves over and over to make up for inner emptiness; and people who reproduce strictly from ego are scary operators.
One thing I don’t like is how all these famous hollywood and sports type have kids out of wedlock like it’s no big deal.
I guess the big news is so called role model Tom Brady is having a kid with his ex. Brady is in Paris with new girlfriend while his ex his gonna have a kid that is gonna be more then likely fatherless. What a bad role model for the youth of america.
Thank god there we still have the great honorable Peyton Manning to be a role model to america youth. Manning is the kind of guy we should all look up to.
I wonder whose gonna make money at teh end of this deal, which brothel, which sweatshop, damn could even be you with you made in india merchandise
My comment is related to #4 by Ikram. I found these links-
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1904/19041300.htm :
“Many baby girls in my area were saved from death by the cradle baby scheme, introduced by Jayalalithaa amma (in 1992, by the former Chief Minister). But after her government’s term the scheme languished, and no one left their babies in the government cradles anymore. Now again, after a lot of campaigning for the scheme by the new government, people are leaving their babies in the cradles.”
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1702/17020710.htm :
“DURING the Decade of the Girl Child (1990-2000), the Central and State governments introduced various schemes aimed at enhancing the status of the girl child. However, they have had little impact.
In 1992, following reports of female infanticide, the Tamil Nadu government headed by Chief Minister Jayalalitha introduced a “cradle baby scheme” under which parents could abandon “unwanted” girl babies in cradles kept in noon meal centres, primary heal th centres and orphanages.”
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/grhf-asia/suchana/0225/george.html :
“In contrast, the response of the government of Tamil Nadu in 1992, under Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha, was different in that the existence of the practice in the state was acknowledged. [31] Earlier that year the state government had launched the ‘Cradle Babies’ scheme, whereby families were asked to abandon unwanted female infants in cradles provided for that purpose in government primary health centers, rather than kill them.”
All these links are clearly referring to the “cradle baby scheme” specifically within the context of female infanticide. It looks like the scheme didn’t really take off then but it is certainly not a “unique new scheme.”
Isn’t Edison like 90% Indian? or is that just an Urban Indian myth?
One does not need to be a dowry-seeking, bride-burning, infanticidal brute in order to qualify as a sexist.
Maybe one is just a regular guy who expects and assumes his bride will be cooking daily for him after marriage because it is her stri-dharma, womanly duty.
In today’s modern world most women are not beat for such attitudes and prefer an equal partnership to an imbalanced sense of duty.
This is appears to be one reason why quite a few men seek brides from their home countries, or the countries of their parents, while women from the same countries do not, but rather seek someone from the host country.
I poked around after reading this comment and actually found this old Sepia post. There appears to be significant outmarriage among Desis (with the caveats mentioned in the article). The interesting thing is that Razib’s data didn’t show a marked difference between men and women. I wonder if anyone’s done a more structured study on this, though.
I know that gender values are not the only (or perhaps even the major) factor leading to high out-marriage rates. But I think that a lot of Western-born men are as uncomfortable with Desi ideas about gender as women are.
Edison has a desi population of 20% but the town total population is only 100,000. When it comes to major metro area there is no big desi population then like in Vancouver.
Statistic-wise I have no data. Yet the number of parents searching for a “boy from the homeland” for their American born or raised daughters does not compare to the vice versa scenario. Forget the parents. I don’t know any American Desi women looking for such, but I have known some American Desi men. That’s their perogative. Not saying it’s good or bad. It just is what it is.
And I know that there are alot of American Desi men who also feel uncomfortable about the idea of marrying someone from the Desh – for whatever reasons.
But I think that a lot of Western-born men are as uncomfortable with Desi ideas about gender as women are.
Just think of all those poor white and non-desi women who married into oppressive South Asian families? It seems one in three South Asian men has duped a “progressive” western damsel. They clearly didnt know what they were getting into. I shed tears for them as I write. Warning: Mild outburst, and I shamelessly use your term –“fuckin Hindoos!”
risible,
I don’t mind if you use it, but you know it was meant sarcastically right?
Again, I KNOW that regressive ideas about gender are absolutely not universal, and that every single family here basically forms its own amalgam of Western and Desi beliefs. I also think that families which would accept an interracial marriage are more likely to be progressive in other ways (but that’s a bald assumption and I freely admit I can’t substantiate it). I’m not trying to argue that women should assume that Indian-born Indian men are bringing in bad gender values, or that Western-born Indian men have good ones. It’s all well and good to talk about population norms, but that says nothing about individuals.
I just think that as long as the risk exists that one might end up in a family relationship like this, the probability of out-marriage among Western-born Desis remains high. That’s all.
Maybe one is just a regular guy who expects and assumes his bride will be cooking daily for him after marriage because it is her stri-dharma, womanly duty.
Heh. I don’t know why, but the “stri-dharma” thing made me laugh!
At any rate, just to play devil’s advocate, I actually do see a slight upside for women who willingly enter into marriage with men who want their wives to cook for them and pick up after them, etc. It gives the woman subtle forms of control over the man.
Assuming that the man in question is basically just a regular guy who would never stoop to violence, etc., a woman who cooks and cleans for her husband eventually ends up with a husband who can’t do any of these things for himself. He becomes completely reliant on her for his most basic needs. She has made herself indispensable through simple performance of her wifely duties. The husband is just a shell of the man he was before marriage.
Girl power! 🙂
Due to the nature of the religious group I belong to, I know quite a few non-desi women (and men) who have married Indians – in India.
Some of the marriages have lasted, most have not.
The cultural gaps were just to big to bridge, even though the couples shared the same religious beliefs.
Even with the ones that have lasted till now, cultural issues are what still remain their biggest sources of disagreements, arguments and fights.
I know one couple where the Indian is now living in USA and the American is now living in India. Since they have separated physically they are getting along better than ever – via email and phones. He doesn’t want to leave America and she does not want to leave India.
I agree. Because a culture that turns a women into a cook, turns a man into a wallet. It’s socially sanctioned prostitution.
I don’t mind if you use it, but you know it was meant sarcastically right?
Of course. 🙂
I just think that as long as the risk exists that one might end up in a family relationship like this, the probability of out-marriage among Western-born Desis remains high. That’s all.
If this is true (and I am not doubting it,it would probably limit the number of desi men marrying white/western women as well. Just think, wouldn’t any self-respecting white/western individual (or family) tuned in to South Asian gender discrimination resist bringing the beast onto the bed, so to speak? That so many desi men have been succesful at infiltrating and deflowering is a demonstration of our wiliness. I credit the caste system
Hema-ji
That’s not power. That’s foolishness.
Any woman who knowingly marries a man who cannot care for himself is getting what she deserves. These things need to be worked out before entering into marriage. Or else a trial period of living together needs to take place before vows are made, in order to assess the man’s ability, or lack thereof, to take care of himself and contribute his share to the maintaianance of the household.
Alot of that has to do with how he was raised and taught by his own parents.
His parents should be observed.
If you are talking about American Desi men and women, I can see how those relationships might work out better than if non-desi Americans hook up with Indians in the Desh. The majority of the desi/non-desi relationships that I have witnessed have been ones of non-desi with Desi born, raised and living in the Desh (India). Those have not fared well at all.