Where have all the girls gone?
July 5, 2011 10:54 PM   Subscribe

How did more than 160 million women go missing from Asia? How western money and advice helped fuel sex selection of boys in developing nations.
posted by aeschenkarnos (18 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Should probably go in the still open thread -- vacapinta



 
My gut feeling is that pro-male sex selection is going to turn out to be one of the worst things that we, as a species and as cultures within our species, have ever done.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 11:06 PM on July 5, 2011


Girls? Women? You want to have it both ways? They weren't even human when they were aborted, were they? Isn't that how it works?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:21 PM on July 5, 2011 [2 favorites]


Maybe this should go in the open thread.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:23 PM on July 5, 2011 [3 favorites]


I firmly believe (or have said it enough times after a few drinks) that eventual Korean reunification will happen because

a) the ratio of boys to girls in recent years in South Korean schools is around 120 to 100, thanks mostly to sex selective abortion, and the overall birthrate in South Korea is the lowest in the OECD
c) homosexuality runs at the same rate here in Korea as in every other human population, but even though it is changing societally, it is still very very much a secret and suppressed thing to be, so that's right out
d) marrying outside of Korean ethnicity is still frowned upon by most (though this too is changing)
e) even now, large numbers of women from poor Asian countries (southeast Asia in particular) are being brought to Korea, exclusively by farmers in the Korean countryside, because there is already a gender imbalance, and very few young Korean women (or young Koreans at all) want to live there

and finally

f) once the current generation of boys grows up and finds that there are something like 20% fewer Korean women their age, they will inevitably look to the North, because 'hey, at least they're Korean!'

It will be love that will finally breach the DMZ.

I am only partly joking.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:25 PM on July 5, 2011 [3 favorites]


Yep ATG. And don't feed the troll on the way.
posted by Summer at 11:25 PM on July 5, 2011


Whoops -- soon to be deleted double, looks like. Ah well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:26 PM on July 5, 2011


I'm not too worried about this. There will be more divorces and re-marriages, effectively a sort of sharing. See previous post on Japanese divorce ceremony.
posted by stbalbach at 11:27 PM on July 5, 2011


But North Korea has the same, if not a greater, gender imbalance. The desire for a son is probably even stronger in a country with a shit economy and even fewer professional options for women.
posted by bardic at 11:40 PM on July 5, 2011


Man, this civilization stuff is hard. Wish we could load a savegame from about 1945 and try again.
posted by Malor at 11:44 PM on July 5, 2011


Malor: Man, this civilization stuff is hard. Wish we could load a savegame from about 1945 and try again.

Didn't we have to quickload like a dozen times to make it through the cold war alone?
posted by Mitrovarr at 11:51 PM on July 5, 2011 [1 favorite]


OTOH, if the North Koreans can't afford ultrasound...
posted by ryanrs at 12:00 AM on July 6, 2011



Man, this civilization stuff is hard. Wish we could load a savegame from about 1945 and try again.


Uhhh, hey...maybe if we're taking on this project we can take it back a few more years and skip that whole thing, okay?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 12:02 AM on July 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


This may be sort of a quasi-dupe of the earlier post, but it serves to emphasize something that didn't seem to be getting much attention in the thread there, which is that the author's basically saying the gender imbalance is (at least in big part) a product of deliberate social engineering by Western governments and big nonprofits concerned with population control.

I haven't done nearly the reading on the issue that I should, but that sure doesn't seem to be the standard narrative.
posted by brennen at 12:10 AM on July 6, 2011


an article for the Washington Star ... clamored for the development of a "manchild pill"

Which was understandably misinterpreted by the pharma industry, and Charlie Sheen was born a year later.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:16 AM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


The article immediately moved to sex trafficking and the loss of woman's rights due to the scarcity. I realized my ethnocentricity when my first thought was that the women could name their price and do as they want.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 12:18 AM on July 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Currency MANipulation: Sex ratio drives yuan lower
... new research produced by economists at Columbia University suggests that Western central bankers are mistaken in their belief that the Chinese currency is grossly undervalued.

They argue that the low real exchange rate is not completely the result of currency manipulations but rather has been created by a skewed sex ratio that has left millions of Chinese men with little prospect for marriage.
posted by Kevin Street at 12:59 AM on July 6, 2011


But North Korea has the same, if not a greater, gender imbalance.

In fact, it has precisely the opposite.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:06 AM on July 6, 2011


Yeah, I somehow missed the open thread. Sorry. Mods please delete.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 1:14 AM on July 6, 2011


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