The Sikh community has survived wars with the Mughals and then the British, the terrible bloodbath of the Partition, and then 1984 and its aftermath.
But according to a recent New York Times article, what is really weakening the defining symbol of Sikh community in India is just… well, laziness:
Like many young Sikhs, he found the turban a bother. It got in the way when he took judo classes. Washing his long hair was time-consuming, as was the morning ritual of winding seven yards of cloth around his head. It was hot and uncomfortable. (link)
And:
The dwindling numbers of turban wearers reflects less a loss of spirituality than encroaching Westernization and the accelerating pace of Indian life, Jaswinder Singh said.
He puts the start of rapid decline at the mid-1990s, as India began liberalizing its economy, more people began traveling abroad and satellite television arrived in the villages of Punjab. Working mothers are too rushed to help their sons master the skill of wrapping a turban, he said, and increasingly they just shrug and let them cut their hair.
“Everyone is working harder to buy themselves bigger cars,†he said. “They don’t have time to teach their children about the Sikh heroes. Boys take film stars as their idols instead.†(link)
Anecdotally, talking to cousins and other relatives, I’ve had the same impression: young Sikhs in India see the turban and beard as 1) hot and 2) unfashionable. It’s also interesting in this passage that busy working mothers are cited as part of the problem. (Quick poll for the Sikhs reading this: who taught you how to tie your pagri? Many Sikh men I know were taught by women in their families.)
Though she does have quotes from people who are unhappy about the phenomenon, I must confess that on an emotional level I do find Amelia Gentleman’s article a shade too cheery considering how much anxiety this trend causes amongst traditional Sikhs. Indeed, as the defining symbol of the Sikh tradition declines, it’s hard not to think of the core of the religion as declining as well.
Oddly, one of the factors named here — India’s hot climate — is less of a factor in places like the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.
Naina wrote:
Actually, there’s a lot of fascinating academic literature out there about the varying types of ‘beauty pageants’, all centering on the idea that pageants are about selecting a person who is the best embodiment of the values of the community/group who holds it; it seems that this is true regardless of the type of pageant (from Texan “rattlesnake queens” to trans/gay (bantut) competitons in the Philippines). I agree that it is interesting to see men in pageants as a gender role reversal, but the trends and idiosyncracies are really cool to read about.
If you’re interested, there’s a great edited volume from just a couple of years ago called Beauty Queens on the Global Stage (citation below), and, of course there has been a TON written from a desi angle re: miss worlds and miss universes. If you’re interested, I can send you some articles.
Here’s the book:
Cohen, Colleen Ballerino, Richard Wilk, and Beverly Stoeltje. Eds. 1996. Beauty Queens On the Global Stage: Gender, Contests and Power. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 0415911532
so sorry, i did the block quote wrong (nested tags).
Yes, but the hostility is based on perception of difference – whether they fixate on the beard and turban or the skin color, it’s still there. At least by adopting a visible marker of difference voluntarily, one provides oneself a spiritual-psychological boost that is reinforced daily, everytime one ties one’s dastar. Any personal experiences on this you would care to share, Amardeep?
That’s a common misconception, that Reform jews must be “less religious”.
are you capable of reading what other people write? yes, reform judaism is a vibrant, and even dominant, branch of religious judaism in the USA. but in most of the rest of the world it is a non-presence. the ‘secular’ jews in israel are not reform, they don’t consider reform judaism a religious option for them (in part because the orthodox rabbinate has blocked legitimization of reform and conservative religiosity). reform judaism started in germany, and spread to the USA. for obvious reasons it isn’t a strong presence in germany, so it is in the US that it is a viable option. in most of the rest of the diaspora religious expression took the expression we would term ‘orthodox’ (though the mitnagdim, hasidim, sephardic and mizrachi jewish traditions would all emphasize their differences) in the USA. non-orthodox jews were avowedly secular, though they might have a strong jewish cultural identity. the reform movement in the USA rejected the idea of jewish nationhood in the 19th century (though they went back to it in the 20th) explicitly because they wanted to turn judaism into just a religion (confession or denomination). many atheist or non-religious jews reject reformism explicitly because it does not resonate with their sense of what religious judaism is about (more so outside the USA where reform is thin on the ground).
It’s ok if cultures evolve with time, as long as the underlying philosophy is retained through generations. I hasten to add that there also seems to be a certain degree of correlation between giving up one’s culture (dress/language/food etc) and losing underlying values (reverence to elders, work ethic etc).
sure, about values, but those values are not the necessary ones either. that is, it seems pretty obvious that if you “look like” the mainstream society you’ll assimilate their values to a greater extent. in a place like india i doubt it would be as much of an issue re: reverence to elders, work ethic, etc., cuz i doubt that hindu punjabis have different values….
Don’t worry Razib. I will never again respond to anything you post because you get so snarky any time I post anything that disagrees with you. There are plenty of people on this site I have disagreed with but we’ve managed to argue without being rude. I can thing of plenty of snarky comebacks myself, but I will refrain. You can continue to be an authority on Judaism, or anything else, with no one to contest you.
There are definitely women who identify as being Sikhs who don’t find the turban and beard attractive, but there are also plenty who do. It did bother me when I heard a couple of single girls in my family asked if they wanted a guy with or without a turban and beard, and one of my cousins replied, “No no – girls these days don’t want that…”
As far as Non-Sikh women, a lot of my sardar friends get lots of love from plenty of non-Sikh women. Some of these men may just not realize that it’s not the turban that’s keeping the ladies away – it’s them. But then, in India, when the kids are going through this spouse-finding process, they’re also taught that the main focus is on their appearance and their resume. Moms don’t tell their sons, “Beta, you need to work on your swagger to find a quality mate.” So it may just be that their not taught to have any game, or don’t learn any from anywhere else, and when they don’t get what they consider to be a favorable response from women, they figure it’s the turban. That sucks.
And sidenote: Poorly tied turbans are definitely a turn off (at least for me). A man’s turban says a lot about him. (I have my theories.)
I know I rambled a bit. Sorry.
While sheer laziness is probably a partial contributing factor to this trend, I’m pretty sure its not the main reason most keshdari youth cut their locks. The lazy ones tend to keep the pugh, but drop the beard. As has been said above, I think much of this has to do with the perception of what the women-folk find attractive, and to an extent, I think they have a point.
Here in the west tho, I really think the increasing influence of militant-secularism also has had an impact. Religion just isn’t cool right now, and outward symbols of faith are generally viewed (at least initially) with suspicion/apprehension. We saw this explicitly with the school ban in France, and recently here in the UK with the Muslim veil/head scarf furore.
For the poll: While my mum took care of our hair when young, it was always my dad who firstly taught us how to tie a patka properly, and then a full turban. I still regularly get chided by my dad when my pugh is anything less than perfect in his eyes, while my mum always thinks it is perfect – even when it clearly isn’t… For the record, both have busy career schedules.
The common understanding of “secular” is “less religious”, dictionaries notwithstanding.
Apart from the turban issue (which I would say boils down to men responding to female preference), the satellite television arrival in villages will be the end of the Punjabi language. The villages are the last stronghold of well-spoken Punjabi. Unfortunately Punjabi is a language which is not adequately taught in schools. The English-medium schools give it very short shrift, and the Punjabi-medium goverment schools suck. Due to the language politics of Punjab, most Hindus do not go to Punjabi-medium schools anyway, opting for Hindi-medium if they can’t afford English. Compounding this is the fact that Hindi and Punjabi are fairly similar in many respects, and therefore people (the younger generation raised on cable tv) will gradually use more and more Hindi words in their Punjabi without even fully realising it. You can see this in Pakistan already, where 60 years of Urdu and English have already devastated Punjabi.
I believe you’re right Amitabh. Punjabi, among many other languages through out the world, is dying out. I noticed this with my cousins’ children as well. They go to private schools (english-medium, I believe) although they speak Punjabi, they aren’t very good at writing/reading it. They know how to write/read (and speak) English and Hindi, but not so much Punjabi. And don’t get me started on those families who are living outside of Punjab in cities like Bombay/Nagpur/Surat, their kids’ Punjabi skills are worse than any ABCD’s (which is probally because it would be too hard for them to balance punjabi/english/other indian language).
When I visited India, I could hardly understand what my cousins were saying. When we tried to converse in Punjabi, they mixed some Hindi into it. And since I don’t understadn Hindi, I was very lost most of the time.
If wanting to be attractive to girls is a motivator in Sikh men forgoing the pagh, then the situation is only going to get worse. Punjab has the lowest ratio of girls to boys in all of India, especially in the lower age groups. That means that men are going to have a hard time finding brides, something which has already begun, as men are starting to “buy” brides from other parts of India. It certainly doesn’t help that so many Punjabi men from the West keep flocking to India to marry the fewer and fewer girls that are there because these men are insecure about their masculinity and want a “homely” bride who they can control and only give as much freedom as they’re comfortable with. Anyway, I digress. But yea, men are having to take extra steps now to live up to the Bollywood beauty standards if they want to nab a gal.
Sonia you made a very good point in your last post about the low birth rate in Punjab for females. Also you were dead on about insecure punjabi men in the west who go back to finding a bride they can control and limit there a freedom. Sonia I don’t know if you aware of this, but the practice of female fetus being aborted is now problem in some western punjabi communities.
The funny thing is that in the past I have been criticized for making these same points in other posts.
All of this wont matter in 5 thousand years, when everyone start’s to worship GLANG, peace be upon it.
Sikhism is a religion with few answer’s. Ask 10 Sikh’s about what happen’s to your soul when you die and you will get 10 different answer’s. Ask about eating meat, you get 10 different answer’s. Ask about how you are supposed to eat in a Gurdwara and you will get 10 different answer’s. Ask about wedding ritual’s and ….you get the picture.
So it is not a simple religion. So, if you find yourself belonging to a religion with no clear answer’s on basically anything then you will make up your own rules and hence the whole “Hair is not important, it is what’s in your heart”, philosophy and that is a hell of alot easier then the alternative way to express your faith.
Why is that a bad thing? Better a religion that contains room for personal interpretation than one that claims to know everything, is the only one true faith, and imagines it is superior to all other faiths.
I didnt mean that it was a bad thing. I am just saying that a religion with no clear cut answers is going to have a hell of alot more people taking the easy way of interpreting it then the other way around.
It’s why you have 20 thousand people watching 500 people run a marathon and not the other way around.
I’m not too happy with the characterisation of Sikhs with cut hair as lazy (or cursed with lazy mothers, God forbid). It’s just as easy to read cut hair as indicating that individuals simply have other priorities as it is to assume those same people are lazy. Not everyone wants to make declaring their religious identity to the world their top priority. I’m pretty horrified by the anti-working-mother tone of the article too, and the idiot whose quote seems to make out that women work so their families can have bigger cars. WTF? If I have kids, there’s no way I’m going to comb their hair for 15 years because I a) have other priorities, b) don’t want to be identified by my religion every time I leave the house (and neither does my short-haired dad, for whom it would be more of an issue, nor do I want my kids to elevate their religious identity over all others), and c) work, without guilt, because I want to and have socially meaningful work to do, not for a bigger car. FFS, I have never felt apologetic for cutting my hair, and Jaswinder Singh’s shitty, finger-pointing moralism isn’t going to make me.
Amardeep’s linked article mentions the singer Pammi Bai, who released a song recently to promote the turban. Here is the song for anyone interested in hearing it…it starts about 35 seconds into the clip. Unfortunately the video is unwatchable…it’s in avi format, whatever that means. The song apparently is a big hit; I can vouch that it was on TV a lot when I was in India last month.
Clueless, yes I’m well aware of the problem in the West as well, and my friend who is writing her master’s thesis on fetal sex selection among South Asians in the West says she thinks the situation is worse here because no one talks about it since the community is rather small in proportion to the whole population. I can’t tell you how many families I’ve seen here (in California) with like four girls and then their youngest child is a boy. The sex ratio issue may not be a direct cause of men in Punjab abandoning the turban, but it is causing men to have to be more competitive in all areas including looks. I personally think turbans are fucking sexy!
Those families should be lauded…because if they had four girls that means they DIDN’T terminate the female pregnancies, and opted to have the girls. That’s not sex selection. And I don’t think you can blame them for continuing to try until they had a boy. Most desis want at least one son. I often see desi families with three daughters and no sons. What that means is they tried three times and finally gave up. And again, I laud them for NOT doing sex selection too.
There are families that had 3 daughters, but may had another couple of pregnancies with female fetus which they aborted until they had there “precious jatt” son.
Here in Vancouver that female abortion problem in the punjabi community is a thing every one know abouts, but no one wants to talk about. I have friends in the medical field who were shocked at that number of married punjabi women getting abortions cause they were pregant with a girl.
Turban, keeping long uncut hair are issues that need to be indentified very seriously among Sikhs. Wearing a turban is a burden as long as one cannot be connected to the core as to “why” wear a turban. If one creates a bond with the Guru,then wearing a turban is a joy!!. I know a Sikh guy told me that he feels confident as he had cut his hair and trimmed his beard and feel more accpeted by his peers(other races). But it’s funny that he never asked his peers whether did they ever not accepted him when he had a turban. So it is perceived that turban and uncut hair is “cool” and “good looking”, “more pretty”, “guys want such gals”. So Sikh leaders around the world must be “very Loud” about turban and uncut hair, not just whisper and let it off so easily.pritam,singapore.
From a religious point of view, I think its quite hard to get a large percentage of people who can wear dastaar in the spirit it was intended. if you look at the time of the ghulugharas, that was a time when the sikh community was exceedingly small, but the people who wore dastaar, they knew why they wore it
That Pummy Bai youtube video didn’t work, but here is a similiar one,
Honestly, there should be no reason why a daughter is not as celebrated as a son. I am sure it does not feel to punjabi women who look at how happy everyone is when a boy is born versus a girl. Its actually silly and not logical
Amitabh, yes they should be lauded for not opting for sex selection, but at the same time it disheartens me that their daughters weren’t good enough for them and that they took the financial leap of trying and trying until they had a boy. Why is having a boy THAT important to them? They may have valued their daughters enough not to abort them, but they obviously don’t value them as much as they would a son, because if they did they would have been happy that they were blessed with a wonderful daughter.
Yep, girls are almost always the number one reason. It is a fair concern though.
But if you compare the loss of tradition and cultural values among communities in India as a whole, I don’t think the Punjabi, or even specifically the Sikh community, is doing that bad. Part of the reason is that Punjabi is very dominant in the popular culture of modern India. It is fairly represented in Bollywood and Indipop. You don’t have to be embarassed to adhere to your Sikh and/or Punjabi identity (as for example, I as an Oriya growing up in Delhi as a teenager somewhat had to). In fact, most Sikhs and Punjabis tend to be very assertive of it. Wearing a turban is not nearly as embarassing as being from a poor state, or having a long South Indian name in North India.
This issue is much more prominant among other cultures in India – like the decline of Urdu among the remnant (though sizeable) Muslim community in India.
Sonia a boy is a must in the punjabi culture. I have learned the hard way. I have one child who is a girl. Yet all the time I hear from punjabi people telling me that I need to have a son. One time a person I did not know that well to me that he was gonna pray at the local sikh temple for me to have a son.
When I tell people that I don’t need to have a son, they are very surprised when I say that.
One reason that even in the west punjabi want to have sons, is cause most who come to the west keep there culture and values from the homeland. Sexism is a major problem, yet very few men in our community speak out about it. I have spoken out about it, and when I do people tell me I’m too western.
Sonia, it’s not that different for Punjabi men within India either, IME, comparing my family and particularly relatives who live in the north even with other desi men, I’m always struck by the sense of entitlement, the way they are brought up to be helpless little princes, and yet respected for throwing their weight around, and no matter how well-educated or elite they are, still want a wife they can keep “in her place”…sad but true, particularly in cities in Punjab. I really hope things are changing.
The Punjabi language is probably getting more mixed with Hindi but certainly not dying out in cities like Chandigarh or even Delhi. It’s never been terribly “pure” anyway, has tons of Arabic and Persian words, and will keep evolving. There are lots of Punjabi channels on satellite TV these days, whether music,films or news, and you could even argue there’s more Punjabi media options now than in the days of DD with its two channels.
My friend cut his hair when he was 19, mainly to appear more attractive. Now, 10 years on, he has decided to grow it back. He started feeling alienated from his own religion in the absence of these outward symbols of sikhism.
He looks rather funny now, with a scratchy beard and a “hollow” pagri.
Those families should be lauded…because if they had four girls that means they DIDN’T terminate the female pregnancies, and opted to have the girls.
Whats wrong with terminating female pregnancies in California? They dont have the Punjab problem.
Hmm, as opposed to what – Hinduism? Catholicism? Where there is only one answer? Come on now – you can do better than that reasoning.
You were criticized not for what you said, but for the fact that it was the only thing you talked about and repeatedly posted (which you continue to do) – there are no turbaned men in canada or california, all the sikh people in canada abort their female children, etc etc. By now I hope you realize that there is a whole Sikh community in Canada and in California outside of yours where men DO keep their hair, and Sikh women marry them, and they go on to have beautiful Sikh girls that they love. I can introduce you to many if you would please just accept that you do NOT know all Sikhs in Canada and California.
I agree for the most part – it’s pretty pathetic when you see four daughters and a son – especially ironic when the children are all grown up and it’s the daughters who are caring for the parents instead of the one precious son they tried so hard for.
But the idea of wanting a boy can not just be chalked up to old-fashioned thinking. I want a daughter and my husband wants a son (for purely selfish purposes – he wants a football player and I want to buy a lot of cute dresses and hair clips). I don’t think that means we would value either one less than the other. But I don’t think me wanting to try for (or adopt) a boy if I have two girls, or vice versa, is a bad thing.
The last time I was in Delhi, a group of women surrounded our van and proceeded to “bless” my sister-in-law by telling her she would have a son (in exchange for giving them money, of course). The look on their faces when my sister-in-law said she wanted a daughter was SO priceless. I wish I had taken a picture.
Yes…it’s not easy to faze those people…impressive.
The video doesn’t work (#68) but you should be able to listen to the song.
OK, sorry for commenting so much…Sahej, in the video you mentioned, that is one GORGEOUS woman (the one who is praying and then gives the little boy parsaad).
The mindset is there – it exists, and we can’t deny it or just criticize it. We have to work, instead, to change the mindset and the trend. I’m the oldest grandchild on my father’s side, and I was told that when I was born, my dadi (grandmother) had tears in her eyes – she had hoped for and been expecting my mother to have a boy. It was hard for me to hear, especially because my entire life, having the relationship I’ve had and still have with my dadi, I couldn’t possibly imagine it. I do realize that things were different then – but whether I knew it or not, I was the one who made her happy to have a granddaughter. Gotta teach them.
I was at my uncle’s brother’s wedding in Ludhiana, Punjab. My uncle and aunt have 3 intelligent, athletic, beautiful girls. The hijray came around the wedding house and were asking him how many kids he had (so they could offer him blessings for sons) – he said he was happy with his 3 girls and couldn’t ask for anything more. Everyone was like “Eh?? But of course you still want a son, though, right??” They just didn’t understand why. It made me feel good to see him be proud of his girls and not succumb to peer pressure and let them make him feel like something was lacking because out of his 3 children he didn’t have a boy.
Don’t get me wrong – boys are great. I love them. But when I have children, I’ll have what I’m meant to have, and I’ll be happy with that.
Sonia I never said that there are no sikh men that don’t wear turbans. My father-in-law and 3 of my 5 uncles in California have turbans. What I was trying to say was that % of sikh men who are under 50 that wear turbans is around 15-20%. Vancouver has the biggest sikh population in Canada is where I live. And the bay area and central California which has the biggest sikh population in the United States, is where I have alot of family, and a place where I have spent alot of time.
Also other then right wing sikh’s, I have not criticized sikhism at all. My criticism has been about certain parts of punjabi culture that I find very sexist.
Also before my daughter was born, I told everyone that I wanted to have girl. Yet I lost time how many people in punjabi community said that they hope I have a son.
Clueless wrote:
My criticism has always been about the culture of individuals who judge and hand out opinions on others’ private behaviour which does not violate anyone’s rights, and their tendency to give out unsolicited advice to change the subject’s private behaviour.
Whether Sikh boys want to cut their hair or Indian women choose other attire over sarees or whether they choose to marry trees or abort female fetuses or give/take dowry: The underlying issue is the same. It’s their private behaviour and neither the Sikh elders nor Tharoor nor anyone else should be judging or commenting on their actions. It’s the culture of not minding one’s own business that I find disconcerting, because sooner or later, if these busybodies get political power they will try to meddle in private affairs of individuals and history has shown that they will use State power to enforce their worldview.
Under no circumstances should the individual be trampled.
M. Nam
M. Nam – is your statement at the end that the individual should not be trampled meant ironically? Does it not occur to you that female foeticide/infanticide and the practice of dowry violates the rights of hundreds and millions of individuals? Do women run off and abort their female foetuses of their own volition, do husbands and “elders” have nothing to do with it? Embededdness in structural bigotry and discrimination make it rather difficult to treat some of the practices you’ve described above as voluntaristic individual decisions. I can agree with you on some other points, but not these.
SP writes: >>Does it not occur to you that female foeticide/infanticide and the practice of dowry violates the rights of hundreds and millions of individuals?
I’m afraid you have the wrong notion of “rights”.
Rights can be conferred only on those who have responsibilities. They are opposite sides of the same coin and go hand in hand.
A fetus does not have rights. Cannot and should not. Since it does not have any responsibilities.
But what about the woman who is coerced to abort the fetus, you ask. And I say, “coerced” is a loaded word. If this means physical force, then there are laws against it. If this means societal pressure, then I would say that a person who is not responsible enough to face societal pressure to carry out one’s desires as an individual, then the said person should have to abrogate those related rights.
But what about men who have scrape their lives savings to give dowry, you ask? Same situation. If these men cannot stand up to society and their daughters cannot stand being single, then they have to give up their right to a dowry-free marriage.
There’s no free lunch. You cannot get something for nothing.
M. Nam
Now if only all the punjabi hotties also started showing their legs….I was at a desi do at SF and man…sikh kudis have the most amazing legz….endless chocolate..mmmm 🙂
Whoa, that is a loaded statement. So are you saying that you have never done anything you don’t want to do because of pressure from family/others around you?
Secondly, say this woman doesn’t get the abortion as her husband’s family wishes and then they throw her out of the house. And then her parents won’t take her back into their house because she has “shamed” the family. When faced with those options, what is left for her to do, but get the abortion? Not that I am condoning these forced abortions, but for some women, it is there only option.
I’ve done plenty of things that I did not want to do for pressure from family etc. And I will continue to do so. But I don’t blame them, because at the end of the day, I make the choice. And yes, there are plenty of times that I’ve weighed pros and cons and gone against them to do what I wanted to do as well. It’s a balancing act.
It’s time for her to make some hard choices. You’re saying the glass is half-empty, and here I am thinking the glass is half-full. She’s free to do what she wants. It’s a big world and with a bit of courage, determination and sheer hard work, most people can fend for themselves.
What do you suggest she do?
M. Nam
I don’t see how the solution to son-preference is to have a son so that other Punjabis will leave you alone. I’m glad you have the confidence to tell them that you don’t need to have a son, but too many people are afraid to. The solution isn’t to succumb to the pressure, but to change the mentality. We can’t change the world overnight, but we can change the way WE think. I personally think a fitting response to the Punjabis who pester you about having a son is to tell them to fuck off. I’ve had fights with my own mother about this when I ask why she is extra congratulatory to a Punjabi couple if they had a son. And incidentally, her own son is pretty much a failure in life and me, her daughter, is the one all her hopes are pinned on.
What’s wrong with it is that it represents the devaluing of girls, that’s what. That’s like asking what’s wrong with lynching a Sikh man in 1984 because there were plenty of Sikhs in Punjab already.
Props to Sonia for the stinging comeback ^^
MoorNam, I have heard this statement before, and it does seem to make sense in most cases. However, the statement cannot be applied universally. For instance, babies — say between the ages of 0-2 — have no responsibilities. They don’t take the trash out, squeal all night and keep the neighbours up, create messes and in general act like hobos. Cute hobos, nonetheless. Getting back to my point, so since babies have no rights according to that doctrine, we should be able to kill them without remorse.
What’s wrong with it is that it represents the devaluing of girls, that’s what. That’s like asking what’s wrong with lynching a Sikh man in 1984 because there were plenty of Sikhs in Punjab already.
Thats a rather silly analogy. My point was that in Punjab sex selection of children is a problem as it has lead to female infanticide, large scale abortion of girls (leading to gender imbalance)etc.
However California does not have the above problem and I dont see any problems with some lone Sardar having a preference for a boy or a girl. I dont have a problem with abortion anyway so we might not agree on this.
DEAR GOD! If I wasn’t waiting to sober up I’d have a better response, but really dude, WTF?
Are you saying that California (or other places in the West, for that matter) do NOT have a problem with Punjabis aborting female fetuses? Because indeed they do.
DDiA #96: >>since babies have no rights according to that doctrine(of not having responsibilities), we should be able to kill them without remorse.
But babies do have responsibilities, and most(99.99%) of them carry their responsibilities effortlessly. Their responsibility is to do something that even the best movie actors cannot do: Giggle, smile guiltlessly, squeal with pleasure at parents’ sight, gaze with deep wonder at the TV remote, etc etc. It’s their responsibility to bring out the child in you.
Since the begining of time, man has had the legal right to kill off their baby (until about a century ago). Yet, only a miniscule portion of parents choose to do so (even when there is religious sanction for it).
It can too.
M. Nam