Indian Girls
Apr. 18th, 2005 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikistitchWe were chatting with our Chinese officemate this afternoon. The nominal topic was the current Chinese protests over the Japanese rewriting WWII history in their school textbooks, but, as C.O. is a veritable Font of All Things Sociological and Good, conversation drifted to sex ratios.
As you might know, due to restrictive birth control practices in China, many Chinese families choose to have only one child, a boy. The inconvenient girl children are disposed of, in various ways, which has resulted in a population of young people skewed heavily towards men. The sex ratio of young men to women should be about 1:1, but I've heard reports that there are something like 20% more young men than there should be.
What we hadn't know, previous to today, was that the sex ratio is actually getting to be much worse in India. What's more troubling, this trend tends to make already sexist societies even more hostile to females.
If you've been watching the talking heads shows this week, then you may have had to endure, as we have, Thomas Friedman marching the circuit, repeating his shill for his latest book. He babbles to Bill Maher, or to John Stewart, or to whomever is presiding over the couch of the moment, that he sagely advised his daughters, given our oh so shiny new "flat world," (tm) that they'd rather be "A students in Bangalore than a B students in California." Well, sorry, daddy, we think Frieman's female offspring might prefer her B plus in California, thankyou very much.
As you might know, due to restrictive birth control practices in China, many Chinese families choose to have only one child, a boy. The inconvenient girl children are disposed of, in various ways, which has resulted in a population of young people skewed heavily towards men. The sex ratio of young men to women should be about 1:1, but I've heard reports that there are something like 20% more young men than there should be.
What we hadn't know, previous to today, was that the sex ratio is actually getting to be much worse in India. What's more troubling, this trend tends to make already sexist societies even more hostile to females.
If you've been watching the talking heads shows this week, then you may have had to endure, as we have, Thomas Friedman marching the circuit, repeating his shill for his latest book. He babbles to Bill Maher, or to John Stewart, or to whomever is presiding over the couch of the moment, that he sagely advised his daughters, given our oh so shiny new "flat world," (tm) that they'd rather be "A students in Bangalore than a B students in California." Well, sorry, daddy, we think Frieman's female offspring might prefer her B plus in California, thankyou very much.
