Female infanticide, female gendercide, or femicide: these are all terms used to describe the tragic epidemic of female babies having their lives taken, often at the hands of their own families, due to the crippling societal belief that a daughter is a liability. While it seems incomprehensible that a family, a mother, could kill their own child simply due to the child being born the “wrong gender;” it is a widespread phenomenon that often goes either ignored or unspoken of by the majority of society. In addition to being a fundamental moral flaw within society, female infanticide also has enormous social and economic consequences that come back to haunt many.
Though female infanticide is a widespread issue in various developing nations globally, case studies have primarily used India and China as examples of the reasons why female infanticide occurs, and the detrimental consequences of it. The primary root of the issue is frequently the mindset and normalization of gendercide in the first place. The act of killing a baby girl is often seen as a necessary evil, a means of protecting the family financially, or even a service to the child as it puts her out of the misery that she would have experienced. For example, in John-Thor Dahlburg’s 1994 New York Times article, Dahlburg noted cases in rural India of baby girls being smothered with a wet towel, strangled, and fed unhulled rice that punctured their windpipes. Daughters in India are also often seen as a liability due to high dowry costs. While a son is viewed as a source of income and prosperity for a family, daughters are seen as an additional cost the family cannot afford, especially as dowry costs can often be well over an entire family’s yearly income.
In China during the 1980s, after the one-child policy was implemented, a similar issue of female infanticide emerged. The ratio of female to male babies began to decrease, as many rural families started to find ways to kill babies that were found to be female. The Chinese government slightly adjusted its one-child policy in the mid-80s, allowing some rural families to have second children if their first was a girl. However, the gender ratio was still approximately 103-107 boys per 100 girls. In the fall of 1997, the WHO issued a report saying that 50 million women were “missing” from China, due to biases towards male children.
While female infanticide is a moral problem, it also has economic and social consequences. In various parts of India, China, and other countries where female infanticide is rampant, there is a 10-20% surplus of young men. In China, 94% of unmarried individuals 28-49 years old are men. This results in these men being unable to marry, which poses a challenge for these men and their families, especially in societies rooted in the importance of marriage and family.
No matter how much societal pressure attempts to demean and undervalue women, the simple fact of the matter is that women are just as crucial to the stable function of a healthy family and society as men are. Progress for women is progress for everyone, and to maintain the health and growth of a community, daughters should be raised to feel that they have the same value as sons.
Works Cited
“Ethics - Abortion: Female infanticide.” BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/medical/infanticide_1.shtml. Accessed 25 September 2024.
gendercide.org. “Female infanticide in India and China.” Gendercide, https://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html. Accessed 25 September 2024.
Lu, Li. “The consequences of son preference and sex-selective abortion in China and other Asian countries.” NCBI, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168620/. Accessed 25 September 2024.
Anika Barua
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