This Sunday’s New York Times’ Magazine had a special and resonant theme: “Saving the World’s Women.” The magazine had a descriptive collection of articles well-worth reading. They covered subjects including the challenge of educating young girls in Afghanistan, an interview with Hillary Clinton covering the Obama Administration’s foreign policy in relation to women’s rights, a troubling trend of gender selection in developing countries, and a growing branch of philanthropy in which women support women’s causes. The cover article, “The Women’s Crusade,” is an excerpt from Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s upcoming book “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.” I’ll highlight a few of the most important problems and solutions illustrated in the issue here, but the whole magazine is well worth reading, and much of it focuses on South Asia and issues relevant to South Asia. The cover article speaks urgently about the world’s “missing women”:
Amartya Sen, the ebullient Nobel Prize-winning economist, developed a gauge of gender inequality that is striking…“More than 100 million women are missing,†Sen wrote in 1990…Sen noted that in normal circumstances, women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population (and an even greater disproportion among newborns), and India has 108. The implication of the sex ratios, Sen later found, is that about 107 million females are missing from the globe today.
Tragically, another article, “the daughter deficit,” points out that as development progresses in China and India, sexual selection actually becomes even worse. As women become better educated, they have less children, and the implied urgency of having a boy ironically increases than if they had many children:
In Punjab, then India’s richest state, which had a high rate of female literacy and a high average age of marriage…the prejudice for sons flourished. Along with Haryana, Punjab had the country’s highest percentage of so-called missing girls — those aborted, killed as newborns or dead in their first few years from neglect. Here was a puzzle: Development seemed to have not only failed to help many Indian girls but to have made things worse.
There are many more striking facts about the oppression of women globally: 1% of the world’s landowners are women, a woman in India has a 1-in-70 chance of dying in childbirth, girls in India 1-5 years of age are 50% more likely to die than boys their age, 1 million children work in Asia’s sex trade, “bride burnings” take place in India every two hours, and much more harrowing information that is important to read. But for all the bad news, there is also a lot of inspiring news in the magazine. It illustrates that simple steps taken to help educate and empower the world’s women can have a dramatic effect on the problems of poverty and extremism. (The good news after the jump….) The description of Saima Muhammad’s story is particularly powerful. A woman in Lahore, Pakistan, Saima used to be beaten by her unemployed, deadbeat husband every afternoon, and her husband’s family’s mistreatment of her wrecked her spirit. Yet when she thought she had hit an emotional low, she signed up for a microloan from Kashf Foundation, and using the initial $65 seed, created a thriving embroidery small business that allowed her to “pay off her husband’s entire debt, keep her daughters in school, renovate the house, connect running water and buy a television.” She is making sure all her three daughters get an education, and her husband now “accepts orders” from her.
The notable part of this story is not only the effect microfinance had on Saima, but also the effect that the microloan will have on future generations. She will now be able to educate her children, which will hopefully allow them to all become productive, self-sustaining, politically moderate members of Pakistani society and in turn empower more productive, self-sustaining, politically moderate members of Pakistani society. Microfinance is just one of the tools that effectively empowers women in some of the world’s most oppressive countries; thing as simple as providing free textbooks, uniforms for school, improving maternity care, and eliminating iodine deficiencies can also do wonders to improve gender equality, and thus, improve life in the country as a whole. The many writers in the magazine make a convincing case that empowering women is absolutely necessary for a prosperous and peaceful world.
There are a variety of suggestions for ways in which you (yes you, personally!) can help empower women in developing countries: It suggests giving a microloan on Kiva, sponsoring a girl through Plan USA or Women for Women International, advocate at CARE, or finding your own cause that excites you. The magazine left me sure that simple steps to empower women really can change our world.
Whopee, another article on ‘those backward Eastern societies’. One would think you would post Newsweek article on ‘How we are all Hindus in America’, by now to discuss.
The microfinance story is a good one. If you go to Lahore, you meet a lot of ABDs who have moved back, and are trying to find fields in which they can help alleviate the poverty there.
There are amazing stories like Saimas. Never mind the nay sayers.
Also, big time unionizers, like Lahore’s Labor Party, Farooq Tariq, have done a good job of being in touch with foreign unions like the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, but a poor job of requiring farmers unions to give high positions to women, who do bulk of the work in farmlands to begin with. I’m speaking of the military farms in Okara, Pak Pattan and Sahiwal.
Oi! Oi!
Great story – have also read of the same results when the money is given only to the women especially with these support groups setups. Also needs to be supplemented with more local financing centers as well as places to save the money.
Usurious moneylenders always fill in the gaps around the world from eastern Europe, England, India, China, etc which just leads to more debt and destitution. But if you have a safe, dependable place to invest and save your money, which the local bank can then use to do more micro-loans, to hell with the moneylenders.
Here’s to hoping we will be hearing more and more of these success stories.
“One would think” that when you’re getting something you don’t pay for or aren’t forced to endure, it’s hardly gracious to whine. Feel free to start your own blog where you discuss whatever your heart desires.
damn, where are you interns when we get written up? Smacked down!
Back on topic, most socialists and class conscious activists in Lahore that I’ve met quickly date and end up chasing women out from their ranks. I know many female activists, but they’re all well to do girls, who avoid young communists like the sleazes they are.
How do we create the space for these activists to interact with the uneducated masses? 6 months ago, I thought music. But nowadays, I think rioting and looting is more effective – and proven!
The law and order situation is so baaaaad, it’s hard to talk about lifting up a segment of the society (poor women), without having to contest with millions of overlapping problems. That plague both genders.
But I’m happy, I’m so happy for Saima. And I think microfinancing will work! And Lahore is going to lead the way, ma’shallah.
Hi, am just wondering if all view points are accepted here?
just_a_cat:
From my personal experience at SM, all view points are accepted. The problem occurs when someone says something that is simply inflammatory just for the sake of it, or when someone expresses their viewpoint (whatever it may be) in an insulting/rude/snide/ignorant manner – that’s when the bloggers or the SM Intern have to step in. Expression of diverse viewpoints and respectful discussion and alternative viewpoints are both welcomed and encouraged.
I think SM is pretty open in general, but there is definitely a bias in favor of South Asian Americans, i.e. the 2nd generation. That’s the main perspective of the bloggers–they will tell you themselves, and have said so many times, that this blog is by and for South Asian Americans–and of many of the posters. Conservatives, especially of the 1st-gen kind, aren’t welcomed as much here, at least unless they kowtow to the main perspective here.
As for the bride burning every 2 hours statistic— does someone have any more info on this?
one of the places to start (esp among desis) is to split wedding costs and eliminate dowrys.
Other than that, educate girls/women, advocate for life-saving (and ridiculously low-tech, low cost) solutions to maternal mortality like the distribution of misoprostol to women in their third trimester, prosecute parents who force FGM and child marriage on their little girls and most of all respect the women in your own life.
I actually read an (admittedly cursory) study about microfinance in a slum in Hyderabad that suggests microfinance can, under certain conditions, actually encourage child labor. Basically by giving families the capital to expand a business you end up increasing the earning power of every member of the family, thereby encouraging parents to keep their kids at home working rather than going to school. It’s a bit troubling. I realize microfinance has been helpful making poverty a little less awful in a lot of cases, but I’m not sure it’s all that effective at pulling backwards and underdeveloped villages and towns out of poverty. I worry that now that it has gotten as trendy as it has it will suck the oxygen out of a lot of the larger infrastructure development and industrial policies required to rapidly modernize and transform a country.
That has been a concern of mine for a while. Developing individual groups disproportionately is kind of like putting carts before horses in some ways. With law & order situations as bad as they are one wonders if turning social hierarchies upside down without also improving education and healthcare for all might actually end up doing more harm than good for everyone involved in the long-run.
Those who burn brides need to be hanged : Supreme Court of India
Thanks, Fuerza. 🙂
Summer vacation. Beware of angering the intern when Brand Nubian is blaring through the bunker at 2am: Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down. 😉
Wrong. Unless by “kowtowing” you mean we expect them to be respectful of the space we’ve worked hard to create. There wasn’t anything for second genners before SM. It’s great if the 1st-gen want to participate but it’s boorish to hijack a discussion space. That’s like walking in to someone’s house and interrupting their conversation with, “Enough about you and your under-served history and perspective, let’s talk about what I think!” No one asks the bloggers at Deadspin to focus less on sports, but we are constantly criticized for not covering or reacting to issues like a First-gen would. Not going to happen. Because it’s just not possible for us to be you.
There are plenty of first-gen readers who get what we are trying to do, and who are here (and have been here for YEARS) so that they can understand our generation better. These are actually some of my favorite commenters of all time, because while they read SM for insight in to how we think, they provide the same, for us, via their contributions. They’re not kowtowing, they’re just kind.
SM is open to a wide range of opinions, but people will contradict that because their comment got nuked. This is a private space. We can delete your rant if we need to. That doesn’t mean we are not open to a different opinion, it means that you need to articulate it without being disrespectful.
Back on topic, please. It’s a great one.
One of the things that intrigued me in the Daughter Deficit Article was this line “And how to explain the persistence of missing girls among Asian immigrants in America?” When I thinking of ‘missing girls,” my mind doesn’t automatically turn to South Asian immigrants here in America, although it’s not a surprise.
Also, we have an intern???!!!
Microfinance is nice, but it’s nowhere close to being the fantastic solution it’s portrayed to be. Most measures of success focus on repayment rates, but this doesnt really measure the improvement in the standard of living. More recent studies have shown that microfinance primarily benefits those who already run a business and are looking to expand. The very poorest tend to use microfinance as a revolving credit line. It provides them relief in a crunch but the money isn’t invested. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a wonderful thing either.
Is there some kind of statistics that shows in numbers how micro-finance has helped the deserving? I have heard lot of incidents, like Saima, but haven’t seen numbers to show how effective it actually is.
I have always been big on education as the tool to improve their fortunes. If you can teach kids how to read and how to do math then they will have learned how to learn. And from there there is no end to the opportunities they could have.
Agreed here’s why. Quoting from the article: “A GLOBAL credit crisis caused by subprime mortgages is hardly the ideal backdrop for a business making unsecured loans to poor people without a credit history. Yet big microfinance companies, which do exactly that, seem to be in rude health.”
“The squeeze on credit could expose additional frailties in the microfinance model. Many observers suspect that at least some microfinance loans actually finance consumption, not investment, and that borrowers use new loans from one MFI to pay off their debts with another.”
It’s hard to do a survey to find out. Survey responses from this sort of thing are often really bad with the quality of responses. People are usually reluctant to divulge personal information to strangers with clipboards who are lending them money. The power dynamic is mighty uneven.
It’s even harder to isolate what part of any improvement in their fortunes is solely due to microfinance. They may have gotten a microloan and paid it off, but without the microloan they may have been able to go to the moneylender and do the same thing with a higher interest rate. It’s hard to say. People who get microfinance loans can also draw other loans at the same time from friends or moneylenders/loan-sharks. So you can’t really know how much credit they are using. If you ask them point blank they are just as likely to lie to you about taking other loans in the hopes that it will make their need for credit and their ability to repay look better in your eyes.
It’s a complicated business this.
Taking loans to finance consumption isn’t necessarily bad if it’s done responsibly. It’s basically a way of consumption smoothing in an economy that doesn’t have a lot of cash. So suppose you’re in that rough path towards the end of summer where the storehouses from the fall harvest are dwindling but the summer harvest isn’t for another month or so. What are you going to eat?
You’re basically sacrificing some of your fall crop to bolster the summer one.
Funnily enough, I was just reading a book about Gujarat and its history in which one of the first political acts by Gandhi when he returned to Gujarat from South Africa was to support a community that was refusing to pay its taxes because the harvest had failed. So there’s always that option, rather than allowing predatory lenders to dig you into debt (probably with your help), with you hoping that you’ll either make enough money some day to pay it off or eventually committing suicide like so many farmers in Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India.
Point being, collective social action is, perhaps, a better alternative than microcredit lending, particularly when the ethos of the practice moves from Grameen Bank style to Citibank style. Banks, much less informal economy lenders, are not there to help you – they need you alive, so you can keep working and they can keep garnishing your wages and not attract too much press at how much they’re exploiting you, but that’s pretty much it.
More problems with the perspective of the article and the Kristoff approach in general highlighted here 🙂
On an aside, does SM no longer have trackbacks?
I have trouble with top-down ways of looking at these issues, but it’s pretty unavoidable from where I sit. You might want to look at some of the things that the CPN(M) has done in Nepal with regard to feminism or the work of some feminists rooted in broader social justice concerns in India like Arundhati Roy or Medha Petkar.
On the point about rioting and looting – community violence tends to seep into other forms of violence too easily and is almost always gendered- e.g. Nandigram involved not just killing, but rape. This isn’t exclusive to that incident, but a broader trend that indicts ‘spontaneity’ (which is rarely spontaneous anyway). But it does have effects – rioting, looting, and unavoidable extrajudicial killings by women of serial rapists who are facing no consequences are one of the few ways in which some Indian women have achieved justice.
sadly.
🙁
Of course, there’s the alternative argument, which is that social violence is almost inevitable so you might as well channel it in the most productive way possible, but that’s not exactly a compelling case, even though it may be the most realistic one for a South Asian social justice scenario in some/many instances. For all his flaws, makes me appreciate Gandhi more.
Collective social action that drives wedges between people is not Gandhian by any stretch of the imagination. Not paying taxes from a remote colonial power is different from not paying back your debts. Gandhi was all about reconciliation among various segments of society, not hostility and animosity. Everyone is working in their own self-interest. Do you think the farmer is there to feed you or just needs you alive to keep buying his produce? That doesn’t mean people can’t still be decent to each other while striving to maximize their own well-being.
In your example, collective action against people lending you money may let you escape your debts in the short-tun. In the long-run, however, it only guarantees that you never get credit again because lending to you is riskier now that you have demonstrated an unwillingness to honor your word. How does that help anyone?
Doesn’t the term “social justice” imply the necessity of creating a just society moreso than merely justice for women? Because if you preoccupy yourself inordinately with the interests of one individual group to the exclusion of others then pursuing the latter will end up damaging the former.
Yes! So glad to hear that. I saw an interview with WuDunn and Krishof they mentioned how women oppress other women – best seen in that traditional role played by the mother-in-law. So along with Kenyandesi’s suggestion:
Let’s add that the mother-in-law’s role change to a more supportive one. Major request, I know, but perhaps not impossible.
Yes, that was one of his flaws in certain contexts 🙂 In any case, collective social action against a set of moneylending instiutions is certainly different from collective social action against a state institution, but they’re roughly comparable, I think, from the vantage point of the people without the money and the people extracting it from them.
It depends on the context, how you define ‘self-interest’ and what you are doing it for. It is also worth considering that once you establishing wealth and wealth inequality, then people’s choices and ability to maximise their self-interest become expanded or constrained to the point where it turns into coercion – this is a point that libertarians frequently have trouble with. in any case you should look into altruism as a frequency dependent trait – basically the idea is that everyone is altruistic to everyone else then the social benefit is greater than if everyone was looking out for themselves – but then everyone will also have an incentive for their own sake to take a little more than they’re giving, which will send it on a downward spiral. so the trick is to undo that 🙂 (to really oversimplify)
Well, not if you expropriate their capital, force the state apparatus to intervent and negotiate a settlement for you, or otherwise ensure that the lending system is either eliminated, reformed, or changed, and wealth is redistributed in your favor (or debt away from you). The whole point of acting collectively is that if you were to pursue this on yoru own, what you are describing (or far worse) would likely happen to you – whereas when everyone who is in your situation decides that they don’t want to deal anymore, it becomes impractical for the people in power to ignore you (though they’re likely to try to repress or coopt you). So, for example, if everyone collectively stopped paying their credit card payments, the lender would be forced to take drastic action of some kind or another because you’re cutting off their liquidity at least, increasing risk for their investors, and otherwise threatening their position of power.
Harvard’s *Rohini Pande offers an insightful review of Kristof and WuDunn’s book, “Women in a Woeful World”.
*She is Kamal professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, in other words she’s hot stuff yo!
In Punjab, then India’s richest state, which had a high rate of female literacy and a high average age of marriage…the prejudice for sons flourished. Along with Haryana, Punjab had the country’s highest percentage of so-called missing girls — those aborted, killed as newborns or dead in their first few years from neglect. Here was a puzzle: Development seemed to have not only failed to help many Indian girls but to have made things worse. Quote
That’s because culturally our minds are twisted in the first place
Can I humbly request a discussion on ‘We are all Hindus’ as published by Newsweek. This change in American philosophy has bigger impact on South Asians than anything else since the IT revolution.
The punjabi birth rate for males/females in the west favors boys too. In the biggest punjabi community outside of India in Vancouver there is a clinic just across the border in Washington state that can determine the sex of the baby very early on, so many punjabi females can be aborted for the crime of being a girl inside there mother womb.
I have even noticed in my daughter elementry school that there are more punjabi boys the girls. And I bet it the same in many other elementry schools in the Vancouver area.
I am from that region of Vancouver – grew up there my whole life – and the above statement is a massive generalization. I do not doubt that there may be some that make use of the clinic in Washington and that gender selection might still occur – but this would be the exception NOT the norm.
I am sorry – very ridiculous and this actually mirrors a generic statement I once heard a white teaching assistant make based on her experience with just one classroom; scared me that someone would actually believe: Oh yeah – of course, they must be killing off their daughters in the womb – of course, that’s what they do in India, so they must be doing it across the board here as well, even though none of the same economic conditions apply.
I have never in my life had anyone in my family, extended family, friends or neighbours ever discuss or even consider this type of scenario. It has never come up as a topic of discussion in any newspapers, TV, public discussions, etc. If it really were as big an issue as is broadly stated, believe me, it would be talked about. I am not a defender of the Indian Punjabi diaspora in Surrey / Vancouver – it has its problems – but there is no way that this is even close to being true or applied across the board in any Vancouver school areas.
To make a judgement based on a cursory and anecdotal observation on one elementary school’s gender mix is a huge leap and also very insulting.
I’m guessing it’s something people would not really talk about (e.g. I have a LOT of male cousins and few female ones, but inquiring whether gender selection methods may have played some part seems like too personal and inappropriate a question to ask about over family gatherings…or ever). Also, I don’t think it is the norm either. An article from earlier this year about a bias for boys in the US among “some Asians” used words like “hint” and “minute deviations” and focused on more than one Asian group, not just Indians.
Is dowry still prevalent in Punjabi community in the west (in overt or covert manner) ? If yes, maybe there lies a clue.
It is sad that in south asian communities, women don’t stand up for women, something that is better in the west (not necessarily withing S. Asian communities). However, I have noticed that in India things are changing gradually among peer groups (purely anecdotal). Also, that mother-in-law to daughter-in-law relationship is quite great where the latter is highly educated and it a non-arranged marriage (again, purely anecdotal, although many sample points, so take it with doses of salt).
At the risk of SM wrath coming down on me, I will say this ‘Is Dowry really that bad, purely from a Financial prespective?’. There is an actual cost associated with adding a female member to your household, and in this purely Capitalistic Country we live in, a number would easily be attached to that transaction. Yes, there are intangibles like cost of being a homemaker that have been quantified, but not it’s not real cost. At the same time, generally, women in India get no inheritance from Dad, isn’t dowry just a way to pass wealth? Again, my point is purely financial, not social. Flame away.
Whether this was outwardly discussed or not, as someone that grew up from age 1 in the area, I can say definitively that female infanticide / gender selection is NOT something that is a major issue in the community nor the norm. Nor is dowry – both sides of the families exchange gifts, but only the more fundamental / traditional families would consider this mandatory. Can we go back to using facts and not sweeping generalizations ?
Athletics for women could also be empowering:
“…Boxing represents a new kind of freedom to the women who entered this steamy, old-fashioned ring on India’s southern tip.
Hema Yogesh, 16, a spice farmer’s daughter, ran away from home to join her first boxing camp. Her father was furious at first. But soon, she brought home her first gold medal from a state competition. Her schoolmates showered her with garlands and cheers. Her father, she said, burst out in tears. She did too. He now wants her to compete internationally.
Boxing, Hema said, had taught her “courage.â€
It also fueled ambition. Like most of the girls at this camp, Hema sees boxing as a ticket to a middle-class life. The Indian government rewards athletes with coveted government employment, usually with the police or with the railways. No one in Hema’s family has ever had a government job.
What would life be like without boxing, Hema was asked. She would have had to stay at home, she said, and look after the family’s two cows. She made a face.
For other women, boxing brings less tangible rewards: the confidence to go out on the streets without fear, for instance. Or as a boxer named Usha Nagisetty put it, a chance to be somebody.
“Before boxing, I had nothing,†said Nagisetty, 24, who came to train this summer at another camp, in the central Indian city of Bhopal. “Who is Usha? No one knew. I was fat. I was average in studies. I didn’t think life had anything to offer me.â€
The rise of women’s boxing comes amid a great churning in the lives of ordinary Indian women….” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/sports/global/26boxing.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=world
If gender selection is not a major issue in the community why are there groups like this one started by young punjabi women named Amy Guhman Sara http://www.trinjan.org/news.htm
And this is from a sikh website talking about the clinic just across the border in Washington state http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/hard-talk/16583-ultrasounds-used-sex-selected-abortion-ethnic.html
Here is the clinic in Blaine, Washington http://www.koalalabs.com/office.asp
Look at the name of the 2 people and only 2 languages that they serve you in. Last time I checked Vancouver is a very multicultural place people of many groups, so why wouldn’t they have people to serve those groups. And why would they place ads in punjabi papers. But I guess it just a minor problem in the community.
Thanks for the links and additional information.
But despite the fact that a clinic has chosen to target our community, and I don’t deny that this occurs – I just still do no believe that it is an epidemic as you’ve described above, enough to massively change gender ratios in the community.
Suki, What am I missing on that koalalabs website? My apologies if I am missing it, but it looks like it’s providing services in English by Dr. Stephens. How is that linked to us?
Suki, Sorry, I just re-read. Wow, I saw the two languages. Wow, wow, wow. I feel dirty. That is really low and dirty behavior. What is wrong with us? You won the argument, Suki, but I wish I hadn’t seen that. Wow, we are bad people.
GurMando, Seriously, why are you labelling that clinic as “targeting” us. Clearly, they are “serving” us. Why aren’t they “targeting” the really, really rich Hong Kong Chinese, on your view. We are bad on this topic. Please to stop the denial.
Um – targeting as in marketing…..and am not denying that this does not occur or that there are issues. I am denying that female fetuses are being aborted en masse in the Vancouver area by women-hating Punjabis so much so that the classrooms in schools have skewed gender ratios.
Just because this clinic is marketing to Punjabis and not Eastern Asians is not some sole evidence that this only occurs among Indians. And not all Hong Kong Chinese are ‘really really’ rich – that would be another stereotype.
Yes, it is. If that’s not evidence, what would be? Get your head out of the sand. And, btw, the claim is not that this “only occurs” among Indians. The claim is that it’s an Indian problem.
I don’t understand that last statement – first you say it is indeed evidence that it only occurs among Indians and then that the claim is not that ? It is a problem in many cultures. Just take a look at China.
And I never denied that there are still some underlying issues – don’t have my head in the sand – I said that many times that this probably occurs, but it is not something that should be used to generalize the entire community (or Indians in general) and it is simplistic to label an entire community ‘bad’ – like we’re talking to a bad dog – ‘Bad Indians, bad !’ 🙂 Also – let’s try and avoid personal attacks here.
Given that many of women’s labor contributions (domestic labor, childbirth, etc.) in a ‘traditional’ (i.e. paternalistic) household are not taken into account in GDP or in most measures used by mainstream economics, the idea that there is a cost to adding a female member to your household is uncertain at best, and imo a faulty presumption based on what I know from personal experience about the amount of work that women do in households (just think about the household you grew up in). This includes everything from basic labor to the function of creating the next generation of workers to labor that is actually counted (e.g. farming or otherwise) to providing child rearing / education/ etc. All of these activities have direct or indirect benefits for the family, the husband, the community, the state economy, or the wider economy. If you set that against the amount that women consume, I doubt that you would find you have a net loss.
If it turns out there is a cost in certain contexts (which, again, I doubt), there are more appropriate ways of dealing with it than attaching property to a woman in the context of marriage. For example, as with children in wealthy countries, the state could provide subsidies to families that have girl children and for women as they get married. Of course, there may be other ways to address it – and I’m sure a stronger, broadbased, democratic feminist movement in South Asia would be able to identify these.
So, in short, without first establishing the idea that there are costs, which runs counter to my personal witnessing of ‘traditional’ households and I would guess (thoguh I don’t know) other people’s, this argument doesn’t hold. In the cases that it does hold in, dowry (particularly the ‘everlasting dowry’ in which continuous and sometimes increasing demands are placed on the wife’s family) is a poor institution to deal with it, both for the types of power relationships it creates (subordinaating and devaluing women in a marriage/family) and for the secondary effects it has (leading to selective abortions by gender, etc.).
just my two cents. also uninformed.
So nice of you to delete my comment, even though I didn’t say anything inflammatory, possibly only embarrassed you for assuming I was a 1st gen and not a 2nd gen like you, just so you can get the last word.
To be on-topic… microfinance is helping women all over the subcontinent, but a lot of the money simply goes toward household repairs and the children’s school fees. I’m not sure how the women manage to pay the loan back while simply continuing in the agricultural coolie work they always did.
Dr Anon, There is a real tangible cost to adding a family member as opposed to measuring the intangible of performing household work. An unemotional analysis can quantify it. As for passing inheritance to daughter, no formal avenue ever existed in 5000 years of Indian society. Again, the social consequences have been very undesirable, the original intent was probably not deliberate. In fact, I think most social activities of India were meant to ‘survive and thrive’. It is not in Indian nature for 20 men to sit in a room smoking hooka and coming up with a plan to control society. I bet the origin of caste system was equally benign.
“SM is open to a wide range of opinions,”
Thats good, because I am curious if any postings have been done to talk about inequalities between men and women in western society?
These extreme cases of women being put down in backward societies are also worth discussing, but do people in SM believe in an equal society ultimately?