I’m swamped at work, but I’m also outraged, because of Fuerza Dulce’s latest submission to our news tab– I can’t let this go. CNN may be a bunch of assholes with sensationalism on their minds, but their story and this one are essentially about the same thing; we do not value the lives of women. Via the BBC:
A two-day-old baby girl in India has survived after being buried alive in a field by her maternal grandfather in the south of the country. The baby, who had apparently never been fed, was discovered by a farmer near a village some 150km south of Hyderabad.
He said he only spotted her because her tiny hand was sticking out of the soil.
Police say they have arrested the baby’s grandfather, 52-year-old Abdul Rahman, after he confessed to trying to kill the newborn by burying her alive.
“I am yet to marry off four daughters and cannot take responsibility for a fifth one, even when she is only a granddaughter,” Mr Rahman was quoted as telling police.
The article went on to state that he may have taken his grandchild without his dauther’s consent. His unnamed grandchild. Whom he buried. Alive.
I am so livid, I can barely type. Because of this immutable fact, I will warn you that I will shut this thread down if:
- If “Maximum City” gets mentioned. I beg you, this is not the place.
- I get asked, “why didn’t you post about immigration/terrorism/the story I sent in four times, instead of this predictable infanticide story?”
- If one of you says this makes us look bad.
I really don’t care if all of the above makes me a pain in your ass or if it proves that the trolls are right and I am a bitch, after all. This doesn’t make us look bad, this IS bad.
A baby. Buried alive. Yes, it’s happened for centuries, but that doesn’t mean that reading such a story five minutes ago didn’t send a searing dagger in to my heart. We each blog about whatever moves us; there are no assignments in the bunker, no requirements or expectations. This moved me to despair. There will never be a point when we bless someone by saying, “May you be the mother of a hundred daughters“, and we are lesser for it.
Hear, hear.
this is really not worth of a nation that calls itself world’s largest democracy and also this reminds me of a review of a book that i posted sometime back on the news tab Bare Branches Can poverty drive somebody to such low depths ?
A N N A, I cannot agree with you more that this story is extremely saddening. The problem I have is what I should make with individual incidents like this as it will just lead to the cacophony of “All Indians are not evil” and “I love my daughter”, and nobody is left any the wiser. I know that you have a day job and it is difficult for you, and maybe it is the scientist in me, but I feel like more statistics on the prevalence or incidence, or context will help me understand these behaviors better.
In any case, here are a few relevant thought provoking articles, which I’ve read in the past.
Rahul, thanks for being so understanding about my time constraints– I’m grateful you were able to provide such relevant links. Anyone else with more information, please contribute similarly.
My inner asshole says that more statistics or context aren’t necessary– we’ve just spent far too long seeing women as a burden, not a blessing. And that’s not just a desi sin. 🙁
Going to repeat what I wrote on the other thread;
Look, every culture/nation/religion/whatever has issues. Nothing or no one is all good or all bad. Yet, can we come to the conclusion that some issues are specific to some cultures/nations/religions more than others?
America has issues with women, no doubt. But we have had decades of hardcore feminist brow-beating to rid us of alot of things. Things have improved alot in terms of attitudes in just the past 50 years.
Whether or not I’m a man or woman or whether I’m married or have a man by my side is not really an issue here for anything in my life, from renting an apartment to getting the ceremonies done for my parents when they die. It is in India. Point blank.
And just see, even the death of this baby girl was about a man — her future husband which her grand-dad did not think he could afford to get her!
Let’s not be in denial. There is an underlying issue here, a thread that weaves together the garland of dowry, dowry-deaths, widow non-remarriage, infant gynocide, sex-selective abortions, and hell, even apartment rentals.
Wake up and smell the kappi.
…which I linked to, at the top of my final paragraph. You’re right.
This sadness goes back to a central point that Gandhi struggled to convey…there are many Indias. There is an India that is pure feudal caste hierarchy..the India of Bandit Queen. This is an India that Shivaji would recognize if he were to come back in 2007. There is an India of supermodels, MTV, disposable incomes, raves, pre-marital sex; an India where elephants cross the road in front of Bentleys.
I am saddened by this article and by the fact that it no longer really phases me but I am very proud of your requirements for the comments. This is a worldwide problem despite the fact that this particular incident takes place in the sub continent. We should be outraged and I hope many are motivated to do more than they have in the past both in their homes and outside of it to make women be more than the bodies that nations and families are inscribed upon.
Huh, More “All Indians are male chauvinists” BS from the American media. Lets see I guess women are highly valued in the US right,for Crappy Nonsense Network to pontificate to us? Wrong,Here are examples of anti-women chauvinism and violence in the US
1) http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/ 2) http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html
The first website cites a figure of 3 million women in the US per year and that 31 percent of married women in the US experience domestic violence at some point in their lives. Please, get over this BS of Indians dont value their women blah..blah BS. And for extreme examples of anti-female child violence (i…e) CNN-worthy news in the US
1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Wiley 2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Lockwood
And here is more on the second case from the CNN itself http://www.cnn.com/US/9609/09/starved.girl/
So,what conclusions do we draw now,that the US is a violent misogynistic society that treats women like $hit? Of course not,then why do the same for India? Dont get carried away by sensationalism
Worldwide perhaps, but amongst which groups?
Over and over again – I have had this conversation with people around me.
I really think – I do – India needs to spend a lot of money – and I do mean a lot – on EDUCATION.
I know it seems like a simplistic solution but getting education to your next generation will resolve a lot of problems. Educating the mothers – everyone knows this – will enable educating the kids.
It is also a way of removing the stigma (somewhat) attached with being a woman or a homosexual (I know, nothing to do with this topic but gets me everytime…) or a lower caste person.
You educate – you change the minds of people and removing the stigma attached with the above mentioned catagories. If you go around rural areas in India – you will be amazed to the difference in attitude women have about their daugthers. And it stems from what kind of education, if any, they have recieved (BTW – this is personal observation, I do not have studies to prove it and I understand that there maybe other factors at play).
Really, it pisses me off that in 2007 someone would think girls are burdens. But then again, there are always that few fanatics who just dont get it (which I’m not suggesting is the problem here)
I’m the eldest grandchild of my father’s immediate family, and the eldest girl on my mother’s side. My mother’s parents were in India when I was born. Although I have a very close relationship with my father’s parents now, my mother did tell me last year about how when I was born, my grandmother couldn’t hide the tears in her eyes that came naturally because the first grandchild wasn’t a boy, like she’d hoped for.
Thank you for posting the story ANNA – I felt the same way when I read it. It’s a baby. The grandfather didn’t even give the baby a chance. He didn’t say he couldn’t provide the child a good life, or that he couldn’t bear to raise his grandchild in today’s world. Neither would excuse his behavior, but the motivation would at least still be the best interest in his eyes for the child. No – he felt that he would be better off if he simply buried alive his grandchild. It’s disgusting.
Every time someone (sometimes me) reprimands my 15-year old daughter for her highly “spirited” personality, I can’t help but think that she was born on the streets of Kolkata (one can only guess), spared infanticide, and turned over to an orphanage at the tender age of 5 days.
Just look at her now!
My comment may not shed any more light on your post, ANNA, but it is surely inspired by it.
One could conclude that, why not?
Just like I’m going to conclude that the grandfather’s own statement regarding why he did this reflects on the values (or lack thereof) in his culture, conclusions can similarly be drawn regarding domestic violence in the US. One would have to trace the reasons and whys of such DV – what belief system, if any, gives rise to it. Just like I trace the reasons and whys of what led this grandfather to do this to his grand-baby — marriage is neccessary for girl in his culture. Without husband in her life, she will be suspect and lead a difficult, perhaps useless existence.
When crimes are committed, the mind-set and cultural belief systems of the criminals are usually always explored.
I think the issue not whether one nation treats its women better than some other nation. The issue is what are socio-economic causes that give rise to such aberrations in India and what should the “liberated” generation do so to reduce the so called “Bandit-Queen/Shivaji” kind of regions of India or in any nation.
One of my aunts has 3 beautiful, intelligent, and athletic daughters. The eldest has just graduated high school, and the youngest is 11 years old. People still won’t stop asking my aunt and uncle when they’re going to have a son and make their family “complete”.
It is heartrending. More so because I still see this happening in my family. Education does not seem to make much of a difference. I wince each time I hear my mom or elders in the family express regret over the birth of a girl child in the family. They tell it right to my face. I wince and I bear it. I used to fight but over time my resistance has flagged and I take it in my stride. I now have a fierce motivation to adopt a girl child or children.
I always have had strong emotions reading about things like these and today your piece moved me to tears again.
Thanks Anna.
Ah, I found the references to the study I was looking for in 4:
10 million lost female births with very revealing data about the probability of a girl child conditioned on the sex of existing elder kids. There has been some dispute about this study, but I think most of it is about whether the situation has improved since the Indian Supreme Court banned sex selection in 2001. Probably the most depressing part of this particular study that I recall, which is not mentioned in the articles I link here (at least in my quick scan) is that the ratio gets more biased as the education of the mother increases! A little bit of counterpoint to Viki #11.
Nope. It was because she was a girl and the grand-dad felt he could not afford her dowry. Now, if she had been a boy would he have done the same thing? Nope. Because dowry is not neccessary for grooms, and besides, when he gets old enough he can work to contribute financially to the family, instead of being married off at a high cost and sent to live and toil in the home of in-laws.
Like I said before, weeds need to be completely uprooted.
That means these attitudes about women, their place on the food chain, and marriage, need to be completely killed, poured acid upon, until they wither up and die forever. Poverty is the secondary issue here. The first is that she was a girl born into a poor family. When I start hearing about baby Indian boys being dealt with the same way, then I might change my mind on this issue. Till then, it’s a gender issue.
I come from a family of all males and being a guy myself I can said that all i want are daughters. Girls in my family are cherished and adored in my family like they should be in all families.
And the amazing thing about dowry is that not only does the bride have to provide money to her in-laws, after she gets married she goes to their house to work as their maid – unpaid! So it’s really like she is paying them to be their maid!
Now tell me, have you ever heard of someone paying their employer to be able to work?
The system makes no sense whatsoever.
Although there have been very interesting studies that show that couples with girl children are more likely to divorce than couples with boy children even in the U.S (by 5% in the U.S. to 25% in Vietnam). There are several theories as to why this might be the case.
Alright, I am done with the information overload. Alright, maybe it isn’t overload, because nobody seems to be reading them anyway 🙂
“because nobody seems to be reading them anyway ..”
No worries man..the slate article was very interesting…it’ll churn round in my head for quite a while
I disagree. I think socioeconomics (sometimes) plays a factor, but as Prabha mentioned, son-preference seems to span socioeconomic and education groups… and sadly, we see this replicated in the U.S. as well. There’s a great master’s thesis that came out last year on son-preference among northies in California; I wish it were online. =/
poverty makes people do desperate things. and when worth is assigned to gender, it leads to devastating and heartbreaking outcomes. it’s sad that this grandfather saw his granddaughter as just another burden because she was a ‘girl’. if she was a boy, perhaps she would have been spared in hopes of bringing in a dowry when he gets older and keeping the family afloat. modern india has not spread her wings to all the corners of her countryside. there are plenty of rural, traditional villagers like this that still adhere to the old rules. i’ts even further scary to think that this is not the first time that this has happened…or the last.
i agree, india needs to spend money on education and offering a way up for these people, because government food and aid assistance programs can only do so much.
my family is originally from kerala and i am always marveling at the literacy programs and incentive programs they have for ALL children, regardless of caste. of course there is poverty in kerala but it’s not as staggering as northern parts of india i’ve noticed. also, women have many more rights, if not equal, in everything from inheriting property to attending school. i know, that the message i see being pushed across in kerala is that if you dont’ do well in school or have some sort of career, you’re not as attractive of a marriage prospect, male or female, and if you’re female, not even if you know how to make sambar or recite Tagore. this was the generation my mother came from, and perhaps one of the reasons she did become a registered nurse in the Indian military, not get married until she was 28, and had no clue to make sambar until after marriage.
We’re reading them, man.
I’m not sure I have anything to add here, except that I can’t imagine the…the…what is the right word for it? there isn’t one, so I’m making one up…stupignorrorocity…that would allow someone to do something like this.
If there should be hate-crime laws for people who do things out of bigotry, what should there be for people who commit atrocities out of a combination of poverty, ignorance, stupidity, and gender bias?
Gah, this is sick. I want to shake the idiot moron. It’s a baby! It’s a BABY! Aargh.
Yep, Camille, you are correct.
Brij on this issue and Amrita on the widow issue both assert poverty for the reason.
Then we would be seeing poor people world wide killing their baby girls, in-laws demanding dowry and not allowing widows to remarry at the same rate as is going on India, which we don’t. So then we have to look at the cultural/religious factors that influence people’s belief systems over there and draw a conclusion. Like I said, all cultures have their issues, but not all of the issues are the same, at the same period in time. This is clearly a gender issue primarily, and any other factor like economics is secondary.
Now, take a place like USA. Yes, it also has gender issues. But those gender issues are different than the above mentioned ones (not saying any better), and they take different forms, based on the cultural influences of the people. But dowry, dowry deaths and widow-non-remarriage are not amongst those issues.
So when we are talking about different cultures, different issues and belief systems come up. It’s not all the same everywhere.
To reiterate what has been said before, for all the people going on about the glory of urban India, it is NOT JUST ABOUT SOCIO-ECONOMICS. IT IS AN INGRAINED SOCIETAL PREFERENCE. Worldwide, although more pronounced in India, China, and swaths of South or South-East Asia.
I’ve never come across this so-called “ingrained” wide-spread societal preference outside of the regions you listed above.
Have you come across it in USA? Canada? UK? Germany? Sweden? Switzerland? Holland? Denmark? France? Belgium? Where?
“I disagree. I think socioeconomics (sometimes) plays a factor, but as Prabha mentioned, son-preference seems to |span socioeconomic and education groups”
Son-preference over girls is a bad thing and that has to be changed. Lets assume that this mental bias exists equally among the educated, socio-economically well off people as in uneducated/poorly educated, poor folks before anybody had a child. Now what does the statistics say – Will the former indulge in female infanticide ( as in the news article ) more than the latter ? I would be surprised if the statistic say that. I would be less surprised if it is the latter group which indulges in such morally reprehensible acts more than the former. This is not because that the first group is less of culprit than the second group in having that bias in the first place……
Widow Power, cf. comment #22.
On my way to the Charlotte airport tonight, I was listening to NPR, and as I was parking my car in the garage, I sat for a while. There was a lady talking about how food-for-hunger programs were a “blunt force” instrument for combatting child hunger, and that a far better tool for people in dire straits was…cash.
My own visceral reaction was, “no way.” Something in me rebelled at the notion of just donating cash to poor people. Maybe a lifetime of being panhandled by people who’d take my money and spend it on a fix or a bottle of Thunderbird? Probably.
After some careful thought, I think I agree. Money is a good thing. As the lady pointed out, it gives people choice. Trust them to be smart enough to buy the right food. Or the tools to get what they need.
Now I’m flooded with questions. Is cash only useful for fighting hunger? At what point does a cash donation become dangerous or counterproductive, so people start looking after superficial needs and desires rather than their own dire straits? And why? Is it because somehow your own straits never seem so dire? Or do they sometimes seem so dire that nothing can be done to fix them, so you might as well have some fun, or feel better for a while? What’s the specific cultural angle? Would a program that gave cash to poor people work in India? In the US?
I’m thinking about this in the context of a poor farmer who thinks it’s a valid choice to bury his grand-daughter alive. Can this be fought? How? Really…how? Education? But…you can’t educate a guy who’s already past his schooling years and thinks this way. Not his whole clade. Maybe just him, sure. But everyone like him? And their families?
I think I need sleep. My brain can’t quite wrap itself around this.
Salil’s comment makes me ask: Have people here read Sachs’ “The End of Poverty”? Is it worth reading?
Vile. How can someone do this to a baby???
Sick. I’m really upset right now.
I don’t know how much has been done by way of studying this, but I would not be surprised if the statistics are similar. I know it is misleading for me to use the U.S. context as an example, but there are MANY highly educated, socioeconomically well-off (desi) people aborting female fetuses in the U.S. in an attempt to have a son. This is also true in Punjab (female “foeticide” is quite high, across socioeconomic groups). I think it just makes us more comfortable to think of this as a class or poverty issue because we are so used to living in sexist societies. As Rahul mentioned, son-preference is ingrained in most of the world, although it has much more extreme consequences in India, China, and the desh. I have never seen the level of girl-child killing that happens in India and China paralleled in any other LDC. At the end of the day, women are treated economically, legally, and socially differently than boys.
Salil, the argument for cash instead of in-kind help has also been echoed throughout Latin America.
This reminds me of Janaka discovering Sita while ploughing. Daughter of the Earth. Yikes.
I strongly recall that the study that I reference in my comment #18 actually showed that educated women were more likely to abort a female foetus than less educated women. I haven’t read the technical Lancet article, so somebody here might want to in case it has a more nuanced and detailed picture.
I’ve read it, and I really dislike it. It is 90% masturbatory, and as the man who single-handedly destroyed whole economies during his tenure in the World Bank/IMF, I have a hard time taking his argument seriously. My opinion on this is actually relatively divorced from my lefty politics — I disagree with it on an empirical and economic basis.
I think William Easterly’s Elusive Quest… and White Man’s Burden… are more interesting and also better rooted in empirical evidence. The latter is considered to be relatively polemical, but if read in the context of his first work his chagrin is more understandable. Both are thought-provoking and sum up the debates in development economics literature nicely.
Btw since this thread deals with female foeticide – I have a question albeit slightly digressing from the main topic of the news article. everbody more or less unanimously agree that “female” foeticide based on gender bia/preference is bad. What then one has to say about gender neutral abortion ?
Please, let’s not get off topic into a conversation about choice. This is invariably one of the stickier parts regarding female “foeticide” — that on one hand it seems morally repugnant based on its overtly gender-biased nature, but at the same time to ban it also bans those seeking “gender-neutral” abortions, or however you’ve termed it. This topic/article is specific; let’s keep it that way.
Actually Camille you stole the post that I was leading into 🙂 Now there is whole lot of bias and prejudices that exists in the world which manifests in such criminal acts as in the news article. Now as a first step how to deal with those criminal acts. If it is done as in the form of murder by any group, to an extent there is always a chance you will be caught. Now what will not be caught ( and which will perpretrate the evil ) are those acts of female foeticide that go unnoticed and done in sly by the poor and the rich, educated and the illiterate. What can those acts of female foeticide be ? Somebody earlier posted that even in US there are large case of female foeticide. Now how does it occur here when you have such excellent legal/police system. I think it is probably through some kind of abortion. Then how to deal with female foeticide first, technically and legally in any country?
We should note that societal moral codes, which rationalizes or condones such acts and traditions, are also the internal moral compasses of people. Those of us who feel outraged never grew up in this milieu, our moral compasses were moulded in different environs.
Education does not change these moral compasses, it frequently strengthens them due to increased rationalization; criticizing female infanticide even amongst educated people is futile. Even intellect is no match for moral compasses.
Instead of focussing on educating children who are are already moulded in such environs (who would then grow up to be educated female infanticiders) we should focus on the moulding itself. Social-Conservative theory of forcefeeding moral and values education is the only way.
Regarding abortion
Gender neutral abortions should be a legal option, though perhaps discouraged through education/awareness/alternatives.
Gender biased abortions can be stopped by making it illegal to reveal the gender of the child beforehand, and enforcing that law.
I’m sure it will be dimissed as NRI or ABCD uppityness, but let’s all agree to vocally boycott weddings back in the desh where dowries are exchanged. This is certainly one of the contributing factors to this pathology.
Sorry that I took so long to join the discussion. I would not giving this thread enough respect if I commented from my phone.
I have to agree with you on this one. And that is what I was telling my friend. Things like this seem to happen more with the “uneducated”. Think about why Kerala does not find itself in the news for such atrocities.
Interestingly enough, my dad was telling me today afternoon about how in some North Eastern state, female infanticide has left people with no brides.
Besides education, the mindset needs to change. Dowry in certain sections of the country has changed from what it used to be, to a “I can afford this” and “This is my chance to show off my wealth” kind of situation.
As long as there are people who are willing to give dowry (no matter what the reason) there will always be people to receive it.
And all this will trickle down to what just happened.
I wish they had given her to me.
Exactly!
This is what I was trying to get at in my pointing out of different cultures having different issues and the different forms that those issues take in those cultures. All are not the same.
Education does not eradicate the cultural impressions on the minds of the educated people neccessarily. Rather what tends to happen is that those educated people will now use their increased technology to further advance the very same mindsets — as in using sonagrams and abortions as opposed to birthing a girl and then killing her.
So that’s what I was getting at when I said weeds need to be destroyed at the root.
Something very deep in that culture has to change.
I know people have mentioned education here as a solution to the problem of infanticide (and we have had several well-thought and well-supported rejoinders to the contrary. In her new book, Nussbaum hits the nail on the head when she brings to the kind of the education that is offered to Indian children (she makes this point to account for a different phenomenon entirely, but I think her insight works in this context too). It is not that the Indian educational system is without merit – it just seems that we leave out some crucial skills that leave the “moral compass” damaged/under-developed/under-nourished:
Indeed, the desire for upward mobility/economic and social comfort (and who among us does not want it for ourselves?) combined with dire circumstances forces people to make reprehensible rationalizations. I can say without reservation that this person’s deed was condemnable, but I have a nagging feeling that other people growing up and living in the same might have acted the same way. They may have chosen merciful means of killing, or wished that poor little girl dead; but the sad fact that she was unwelcome is undeniable. There are few solutions, but this article describes a pilor program in China about monetary and social incentives for parents of girl children in China. The long-term success of the program remains unclear.
Sidebar: a sociological study of Muslims in India by Zoya Hasan and Ritu Menon shows that Muslim women are better able to negotiate for resources and education for their daughters within the family. The reason: perceived economic discrimination and bleak employment for their brothers. Parents feel that if their son is not likely to gain all that much from his education, then why not take your chance on the daughter. Related article: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2001/stories/20030117002408700.htm
It’s hard to look at a little girl and not feel hurt, knowing that all of this goes on with so many like her. I think changing peoples attitudes requires a lot of communication. I mean really making a point to stop people when they remark on the “misfortune” of a female child, or when a female child is looked down upon for not living up to some disgusting “ideal” of beauty, or passivity and submissiveness. I’ve argued with so many, over what many think are trivialities, yet I much prefer being that pain in the ass, rather than to sit by and allow those things to be said unopposed in my presence. It’s important to actually make your point in a way that the other person can appreciate, or I think at least try to. That’s a small step, but really changing the economic opportunities for women and prosecuting these cases of abuse, and making people realize what a thing of pride it is to have a daughter are so important. I know there are people all over tackling these issues in those and various other ways. Much like these negative ideas about female children are passed along by reinforcing them through everyday conversation and action, I believe that the opposite can also be achieved by the same means (in addition to other very necessary methods, but at least everyone can do this much).
And that’s not just a desi sin. 🙁
I can say from agonizing personal experience, it’s very much a “sin” in latin communities too. You nailed it.
Even amongst those with lots of education, this mindset that “having boys is better” still exists though, so I’m not sure education is the cure.
Yesterday, some ‘educated’ Chilean auntie (who crashed our family picnic), was chiding my prego sister about “Why don’t you know the baby’s sex yet?”, causing my blood to boil.
“They don’t wanna know, because they don’t care, ya asshole!”
Widow power – How do you propose to change the culture in India that is complicit in female infanticide ? This is a serious question – not a rhetorical one. Please dont say the government – coz the State is comprised of people who harbour the same medieval beliefs. I am quite keen to know some new thoughts.
Aminocentesis is illegal in India but that has not reduced gender based abortions. How does one prove that an abortion is gender neutral or gender based? I wonder how many know that abortion was made legal in India in 1971 via the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act ie well before Roe v Wade. Incidentally it was never illegal before that either.
Floridian – We have been looking to adopt an abandoned desi girl. Was it a long drawn out process?