Looking for chinese books about gendercide

[hedwards]

@li3wei1, don't be ridiculous. Women are far more likely to initiate divorces than men are. But, as you point out, lesbians divorce more frequently than other groups in the US, with gay men divorcing about the same as the general population. Which is rather impressive given the amount of stigma and discrimination they face.

 

The point though, is that it's not men's fault that women are too quick to get married and then too quick to give up. I'm not sure what somebody is supposed to do when they're presented with a demand for a divorce. At that point the other party has already been consulting with an attorney and isn't likely to have a change of heart. 

 

And in case you didn't notice, it's a valid analogy to draw, people assume that not having as many women in positions of authority is the result of sexism, when there are plenty of other reasons why it can happen that aren't sexist in nature.

[Lu]

it's not men's fault that women are too quick to get married and then too quick to give up.

The vast majority of marriages involves at least one man. When a man and a woman get married, it's not just 'the woman's fault' that that marriage doesn't happen later. A divorce is rarely only the fault of the party initiating it. Let's say partner A cheats and then partner B wants a divorce. Who initiated that divorce? Surely not only partner B, even though partner B might have been the first to get an attorney.

And are you seriously suggesting there is no sexism in the US? No women getting sexually harrassed, catcalled, paid less for the same job, given less opportunities, etc etc etc? Perhaps try inform yourself a bit more on this topic.

Of course the leaders of a country are only a tiny minority, but on the other hand, almost half of the people in China (and elsewhere) are women. How come members of one half of the population make it to the top, but somehow never the other half? Experiences in other countries show that many women are ambitious, are smart, can play at politics etc. Is there something about China that all its women are incompetent? Or could there possibly be something else at play?

Anyway, the initial topic wasn't divorce and sexism in the US, but gendercide. There are many more boys than girls in China, and you'll probably agree that this is not some kind of evolutionary glitch. So something must be going on there, no?

[Silent]

 

Of course the leaders of a country are only a tiny minority, but on the other hand, almost half of the people in China (and elsewhere) are women. How come members of one half of the population make it to the top, but somehow never the other half? Experiences in other countries show that many women are ambitious, are smart, can play at politics etc. Is there something about China that all its women are incompetent? Or could there possibly be something else at play?

Sure, sexism is part of the equation, but there are a few very clear other reasons why at the top women are under represented.

 

Making a career, especially getting to the very top, requires full commitment. Many women choose not to commit. They tend to prioritize family and children. On average women tend to behave 'middle of the road', they seek security and agreement, the safe options while men tend to prefer to stand out resulting in more outliers. Outliers upward resulting in top positions, but also downward resulting in over representation in prisons and among the homeless.

 

There are real differences between women and men. Many equal rights group prefer to ignore these differences and just point at the numbers and without considering alternative causes and shout sexism. (btw comparable things happen with other equal rights groups) I think people should stop pointing at the different positions of men and women in absolute terms but should contrast these with the choices people have made. Sure, virtually impossible to measure objectively, but just the bare numbers are pretty much useless.

 

For me a more valid point would be the income inequality between men and women. I feel there's no justification for this, but this has little to do with sexism, and a lot to do with the valuation of contributions people make (maybe rooted is sexism). Income distribution is largely based on (perceived short term) economic value of contributions. I feel this should be different, why should doing business and in the mean while destroying the environment be higher valued then taking care of people and cleaning up the mess others leave behind? I think their should be a change in mindset on how peoples contributions are valued. I think quality of life contributions should be higher valued and (short term) economic contributions should be discounted for the damage in environment and social structures that often comes along.

[Shelley]

Ok I wasn't go go down this road but now I feel I need to put my two cents in.

 

Men and women are different, different physically and mentally, different doesn't mean better or worse just different. Men and women excel at different things, when women do men's jobs as well as men and visa versa, there should be equal pay and equal opportunities for promotion.

 

Bringing up a family, having children and caring for a home are just as valid accomplishments as a highly paid, high powered job.

 

Men and women should realise the fact that there just some things most women can't do and some things most men can't do. This doesn't mean no women can do them or no men can do these jobs, there are women in jobs usually considered heavy work and there men doing jobs that are usually considered female roles, but this is the minority, the majority fall in to the gender roles that have been in effect for a good many years.

 

This is because it works out well, women when they are pregnant are not much good at running through the forest spearing deer, but they are very good at staying home looking after the young and the old and keeping the home fires burning. This is not sexist, it is just practical.

 

The problem with sexist roles in work and at home is that it should be the women or the man's choice, they should be able to go and do a job that is not usual for them to do, or they can fit in to the stereotype and do a job for their gender.

 

The key here is equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work.

 

In our home we share the work by who does what best. I am no good at putting up shelves, lighting the fire, putting out the bins, lifting heavy things and using a chainsaw, on the other hand my partner is good at all of this but absolute rubbish in the kitchen, doesn't know one end of an accounting book from the other, no good with feeding the cats or doing the cleaning.

 

So we do what we can, I don't consider it wrong for it to be this way.

 

Our business is P.A. hire, we work with bands and dj's etc supplying electronic musical equipment, and it is quite technical, this is no problem for me. I am a women in what is usually regarded as a mans job, when I started 30 years ago female roadies were very rare and female sound engineers even more so. I made my own way through the problems this caused by just getting on with it and not making a big deal about it, once men saw you could do the job, it was usually not a problem and I even had one band who positively liked having a female roadie ( and no, none of that thank you, I was always too busy to partake in the partying, someone has to make sure the show goes on )

 

So it really comes to a sensible division of labour, equal opportunity, and equal pay. This is what we should ensure is available to all men and women in the world.

 

 

 

[Guest realmayo]

China is very equal-opportunities when it comes to bus drivers and building site labourers....

[陳德聰]

I guess for those of us who know someone who was encouraged to abort while 8-months pregnant, the rest of this hypotheoretical mishmash about whether or not sexism exists (hint: the so-called differences in priorities and choices cannot be considered immune to social conditioning or inherently reliant on biological differences) seems rather inane.

[Silent]

 

(hint: the so-called differences in priorities and choices cannot be considered immune to social conditioning or inherently reliant on biological differences

To be clear, my plea was not meant to deny sexism, in contrary I explicitly stated it's part of the equation. I merely try to point out that there are other factors such as biological and personal priorities/choices that influence the differences that equal rights groups like to point at. Just pointing at the differences and saying it's due to sexism is nonsense, sexism is just part of it.

 

Of course, social conditioning has it's influence on the choices people make, but then if these choices are considered invalid then you might just as well dismiss society. Society is build on social conditioning. Conditioning about what is right and wrong, what's normal or odd,  about virtually every aspect in life. If the free choices people make are already dismissed due to the social fabric everything becomes meaningless.

 

Just pointing at lower salaries for women for the same work and saying discrimination is nonsense. Men tend to negotiate about their salaries more often then women. So if the employer makes men and women the same offer and decides to give those that negotiate 10% more then the women will on average end up with a lower salary. Is the employer now a sexist? Has society learned women to be obedient and to accept, without complaint. their fate? Or has it to do with biology and evolution where women had a vested interest in keeping the peace in order to get male support in raising and protecting her children?

[Lu]

Has society taught women to be obedient and to accept, without complaint, their fate? Or has it to do with biology and evolution where women had a vested interest in keeping the peace in order to get male support in raising and protecting her children?

Unless and until the latter premise is proven, it's not such a bad idea to try and get rid of the former.

Are black people poor because they have less opportunities or because they are less capable? Perhaps they are less capable, but we already know they have less opportunities, so let's give them ample opportunities and see if that doesn't help a bit. Same for women: let's teach them to stand up for themselves more and see if that helps, before throwing in the towel and saying it's just biology. We already have more female politicians than 50 or 100 years ago, so it seems it's not all biology.

Of course everyone should have the freedom to choose, but social pressures should be removed as much as possible, or freedom of choice is limited. If society tells women that the normal thing to do is start working half-time to spend time with the children, and tells men that the normal thing to do is to bring home the bacon, then it's not surprising that most people do just that. If the choice were more open, who knows what they would have done?

And the thing of sexist division of labour in the home becomes rather moot when one is single. If I had to wait for a man to put out the trash, I would be living in filth. So I got pretty good at putting out my own trash.

But I agree with Chen Derong.

[Silent]

 

 

Unless and until the latter premise is proven, it's not such a bad idea to try and get rid of the former.

I think social structure and genetics are (strongly) interwoven as biological differences reinforce social differences and social differences will over the very long term result in biological differences. To my knowledge the biological differences are proven. That of course does not mean we should not strive for equal opportunity, it does however mean that just looking at the end result (income differences, career differences etc) is not a very good proxy to measure equal opportunity as qualities, choices, and priorities are different. To be honest I doubt equal opportunity can be measured properly, it's too complex, but better then the endresult would be to measure the process. What is the invitation rate for comparable CV's? What initial wages are offered to those hired for comparable positions? 

[Angelina]

 

 

Are black people poor because they have less opportunities or because they are less capable? Perhaps they are less capable, but we already know they have less opportunities, so let's give them ample opportunities and see if that doesn't help a bit.

 

Unless you are talking about, let's say, the descendants of African people brought to the US as slaves, it would be wrong to say that black people are poor. In other words, they have less opportunities because their ancestors suffered from colonialism, not because of the color of their skin. Skin color only means that people have adapted to living in a warm climate, nothing else. Look at people like Obama and Lupita, Obama's father was a rich Kenyan and Lupita's family is extremely rich, too. Both African.

 

Also, the concept 'rich' depends on the culture. A rich person in certain countries is rich because he has many camels. A rich American is rich because he has dollars. Were we to evaluate how rich the rest of the world is if we use US dollars as the standard, obviously the richest society would be the society where this currency is issued. Usually rich means to have access to resources and with globalization and the fact that trade is mostly being done using dollars, this equals to money. However, it is wrong to say that a certain group of people is poor. 

 

I agree with what you say actually, people who don't have much access to education (i.e. have less opportunities), might not be considered capable by the rest of society. 

 

There is gendercide and gender-selective abortions happening in China. A Chinese friend once told me that she does not want to have more than one child, while her boyfriend wants a son no matter what. They have agreed that when they get married, they will illegally check the sex of the baby and have an abortion if it is a girl. I told her to learn more about the risks first. It would not surprise me if many other Chinese people think the same way, look at the gender ratio in China and it seems obvious. The government has made it illegal for parents to check the sex of their baby in order to prevent gender-selective abortions. Which might look like a positive step, however, the real problem and cause of all of this is the one child policy. Therefore, gendercide is a touchy subject in China. I will check if my library has anything on the subject, but I honestly doubt it.

 

Perhaps we need a new thread on gender issues in China. The fact that Chinese women can have a successful career does not mean that female babies are not being killed. Not to mention forced abortions. 

[Silent]

 

The government has made it illegal for parents to check the sex of their baby in order to prevent gender-selective abortions. Which might look like a positive step, however, the real problem and cause of all of this is the one child policy.

How deep do you want to dig? I think the Chinese have a strong sex preference for their children. The one child policy exposes/pronounces the issue. China has had episodes of profound sex imbalances before. So I think it's something far deeper then the one child policy. This imbalance may have big implications for the stability of China in the future (say 20-30 years from now).

[Angelina]

All patriarchal societies have a preference for male children. Male children are supposed to continue the family line. This does not necessarily mean that they would kill their female babies. The one child policy says that Chinese people can have only one child. Now, if this one child is a girl, their family will die out. Some families would rather kill their girls instead of have this happen to their line. 

[Angelina]

Anyway, I checked if my university library (Chinese uni) has anything on gendercide. Nothing on 性别灭绝、 性别谋杀、 性别屠杀、 性别大屠杀、杀女婴、杀 弃女婴. The only thing I found was this 

 

Contents: Introduction -- Legal semiotics -- A semiotic approach to a legal definition of terrorism -- State-sponsored terrorism, the laws of war, and the role of storytelling as a self-help remedy : law, literature, and semiotics -- Deconstructing Civil disobedience : a semiotic definition -- Semiotics and Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham jail -- On civil disobedience, jurisprudence, feminism, and the law in the Antigones of Sophocles and Anouilh -- The semiotics of women’s human rights in Iran -- Gendercide and the cultural context of sex trafficking in China -- The culture of violence : child soldiers, slavery, and the trafficking of children -- The Japanese culture, copyright infringement, defamation, and sex trafficking : a study of the fictional life of a geisha -- The impact of culture on the semiotics of treaty interpretation : how pirates read and misread the Berne convention.

 

Tiefenbrun, Susan W.  Decoding international law : semiotics and the humanities /. New York : Oxford University Press, c2010.

[Silent]

 

 

This does not necessarily mean that they would kill their female babies.

Sure, but the fact that female infanticide in China exists already for centuries means the one child policy is not the cause and that there are other driving factors. Obviously however, the one child policy does increase visibility and profoundness of the problem. With only one child allowed there will be more pressure to make it a boy so increasing the chance of infanticide and less averaging. Killing one or two in a family of 6 children has a lesser effect on sex-ratio then killing one in a family of 1 child. 

[Angelina]

Killing one or two in a family of 6 children has a lesser effect on sex-ratio then killing one in a family of 1 child. 

 

Not exactly. Let's say 3 children were male, 3 female. Killing a girl meant that there were 3 male and 2 female children left, meaning it messed up the gender ratio. Nationally, the gender ratio was not THIS bad (I am not saying it wasn't bad) before the one-child policy was introduced because there were not this many cases of gendercide and abortions.

 

I am not saying gendercide did not happen before the one-child policy, I am saying that the one-child policy has dramatically increased the cases of gendercide and gender-selective abortions. Obviously, no one will publish the number because it would mean that the one-child policy is a mistake. The only way to see the unfortunate results of this mass murder of women in China is through the messed up gender ratio.

 

Also, I am aware that this is a patriarchal society and I am obviously not happy to be living in a patriarchal society. However, the fastest way to stop this mass murder is to end the one-child policy. Patriarchy and patrilineality has been going on here for a very long time, I would love to see some changes in this respect, but it would take a very long time. 

[skylee]

Where is the OP?

[gerri]

However, the fastest way to stop this mass murder is to end the one-child policy. Patriarchy and patrilineality has been going on here for a very long time, I would love to see some changes in this respect, but it would take a very long time. 

 

 

Not necessarily. For one, the one child policy doesn't apply equally to everyone, and there have been some discussions of how things go when a couple is allowed more than one child (e.g. the minority ethnicities). IIRC, when the first child was a girl and a second child is allowed, there tend to be sex-selective abortions regarding the second child to make sure it will be a boy, if possible. (And yes, it's illegal to have such an abortion, but it's also easy enough to give a little hint as to gender.) These things were probably discussed in writing of Mara Hvistendahl...

 

On the other hand, regarding rapidity of change, one has to consider what's been happening recently. More (single children) couples are now allowed a second child, if not encouraged to have a second child, but don't seem to want one. HK and Taiwan belong to the same patriarchal cultural tradition with a desire for male and simply for more children, but have some of the lowest birthrates in the world. So, some things can change rather fast. I've also read articles on opinions re. gender where there is a shift already, because a male child will only continue your family line if he can marry, but requires the usual of house, car, income... to even have a chance on the marriage market. Even who will care for the parents is an issue seeing some change, with filial piety sometimes becoming  - or at least being argued to become - more of a daughterly care; there are voices who now argue that a daughter will take better care of her parents (and his) than a son...

 

This here was (from rather too small a sample for my liking) interesting: Liu, Fengshu. 2006. Boys as only-children and girls as only-children—parental gendered expectations of the only-child in the nuclear Chinese family in present-day China. In: Gender and Education 18:5, 491 — 505

 

Also, for those interested in such gender matters, I can recommend taking a look at Chuang, Tzu-i. 2005. The Power of Cuteness. Female Infantilization in Urban Taiwan. In: Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer 2005): 21-28 (Here, it's argued that some of the playing cute may be a ploy/technique to reassure men of their dominant position even as/when women actually take on the higher position...)

 

But, for the original topic, there's not likely to be a lot. For the discussion, yes, Hvistendahl: http://www.amazon.com/Unnatural-Selection-Choosing-Girls-Consequences/dp/1610391519

[imron]

However, the fastest way to stop this mass murder is to end the one-child policy.

That's unlikely to actually have much effect.  You now have an entire generation of people who grew up under the one-child policy and see one-child as the optimal and preferred choice.  Especially with costs related to education, health, access to jobs, buying a house for children when they get married and so on, you have many young people today preferring to have only one child.

 

That being the case, and considering the preference for male children among some Chinese, gender selective abortions will still happen even if the one child policy was stopped because many parents will have decided on only having one child.  Regular non-gender selective abortions will continue to happen also.

 

Educational campaigns are likely to have a better effect.

 

 

 

Obviously, no one will publish the number because it would mean that the one-child policy is a mistake.

No it wouldn't.  The purpose of the one-child policy is to reduce China's population growth.  The government knows and acknowledges there are human costs involved with the policy, and choses what it sees as the lesser of two evils.  Imagine for example if Chinese had a population of 3 billion people - how would they keep them all fed and above the poverty line, how many people would starve, how many people would die due to pollution, lack of access to clean water, not to mention all the other problems having such a large population would cause.

 

I'm not saying I support that view, just that the government won't view the one-child policy as a mistake just because of gender selective abortions.  They try to limit negative effects like gender selective abortions through laws, but ultimately it will been seen as one cost towards the greater good of society.

[Guest realmayo]

They'll view it as a mistake because the labour force will contract while the country's economy still relies on cheap manufacturing.

[imron]

Unfortunately, that's significantly more likely.  However they are taking steps to try and mitigate that also (see above comments about relaxing the policy for only-childs who are now having children of their own).  For sure it's a delicate balancing act to try and get right and I don't envy them their position.