Selection

After watching this video and doing some research on sex- selective abortion, I can't help but be reminded of topics we've touched on in class.
From what I understand, sex-selective infanticide has long been a practice of many countries of Asia and some in Africa to help “control populations”. By having more boys than girls, the amount of potential pregnant women decreases, thus the population of the nation. Additionally, in these countries, the authors commenting in the video say there is “such a demand for maternal and wifely labor...you see women getting married earlier, you see less tolerance for women who don't want to fulfill roles that are already in short supply”. It seems that males would almost want to import housewives from other locations that they know will “fulfill their roles” rather than dealing with their own female population. In this trafficking of women, those of maternal and “wifely” qualities have more value and are more of a commodity to these societies and their men. This results in men who are described as “unattached unsocialized men forming subversive secret societies or militias...” Honestly, this reminds me of an extreme example of our discussion of fraternity and sorority relationships. Wherein, the men use the women as objects to traffic around their “brotherhood”, and the women are selected in their sororities as well as by the fraternities based on their qualifications to make the males proud. The kind of selective process that goes into Greek life rushing and pledging reflects how much you are worth in their society- and if you are not good enough, apparently you are cast aside and unworthy. Especially if you are a female. On the other hand, I realize sex-selective abortion is definitely far worse of a system than campus life. Not only does it control the lives of the unborn children, but that of the mothers' who must give up their children to a “population crisis”. This also leads me to think that, if the majority of the preserved culture is male, and the males want to stay in power, all that is going to happen is this situation gets perpetuated until there has been a kind of socio-evolutionary process that ends with a culture composed of males, and maternal, wifely women who fulfill their expected roles.

--Anna Banana