Gendercide

If you could, would you choose the sex of your unborn child? I was browsing my Blackberry App world on Sunday and found a scary little app. Some might think it’s cute, or useful or even a great thing to pass on. The app in question is called “Gender Predictor” and its message says:

“This prediction is based on Chinese conception chart. Some reports say this chart is over 90% accurate. No warranty/guarantee for the result.”

In the app, you can either find the gender of your baby based on the year and month you conceived, or you can find the month that you should conceive if you want a baby of a particular gender. What they mean to say is “choose the sex” of your unborn child, but I suppose “Sex Predictor” would have had a whole host of users that they didn’t really want.

While this might just seem as a fun exercise, and something to try out to see the accuracy, it is actually more dangerous than it seems. Why? In China (and Korea, Taiwan and India) sex-selective abortion is incredibly prevalent based on the value that is given to male children over female children. Abortions happen because parents want male children, and in China this is particularly serious for them because of the limit on the number of children a couple can have. Gendercide Watch also reports on a practice of “female infanticide” where girl children are killed at birth, or very young, to allow the parents to have a boy child in her place.

In India, this choice is often because of economic strife. A girl child is more expensive because eventually you will have to pay a dowry (which is similar to lobola) to her future in-laws in order for them to take her off your hands. In addition, males are permitted to work the more physical jobs, which is incredibly important in an agriculture-based economy like India’s. Here amniocentesis, which is normally used to pick up birth defects in your child (also allowing you to abort physically or mentally disabled babies) was used to monitor the sex of the child and thus the process of sex-selective abortions was pursued.

In China, economics also plays an important role. Families are penalised when they have more than one child, and as a result of economic inequality between men and women, a boy child is more favourable. He will be more likely to get a job and share his income with the family. If girl children are born, they may be killed, but more frequently they will not be registered, denying them access to education and healthcare. As a result China faces a situation where there are simply not enough women any more to maintain population growth. The effects of this are human trafficking and forced marriages. In short, allowing people to predict sex has fuelled further gender inequalities.

Children are gendered before they are born — we all do it every time we see someone who is pregnant and ask whether it’s a boy or a girl. We imagine that child’s life, and we apply our understandings of what it means to be a boy or a girl to that baby before it has said one word. The Blackberry app is situated within a world that values one “sex” and certain “gender” and must be viewed as part of the process of supporting patriarchy. It is not simply a cutesy app.

The core of this problem is patriarchy. It is the value given to socially defined and enforced norms of masculinity and femininity, rather than the life of a human child. According to one article, this misplaced value system could have cost as many as 16 million girl children their lives.