"Over the past few decades, 160 million women have vanished from East and South Asia — or, to be more accurate, they were never born at all. Throughout the region, the practice of sex selection — prenatal sex screening followed by selective termination of pregnancies — has yielded a generation packed with boys. From a normal level of 105 boys to 100 girls, the ratio has shifted to 120, 150, and, in some cases, nearly 200 boys born for every 100 girls. In some countries, like South Korea, ratios spiked and are now returning to normal. But sex selection is on the rise in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East." American journalist Mara Hvistendahl's new book: "
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men," examines and tries to predict the actual and potential effects of unequal sex ratios on men, women and the social economies of the affected regions, including the recent spike in sex trafficking and bride-buying across Asia.
More.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 10, 2011 -
65 comments
"No Toilet, No Bride": Count the number of public toilets for women in India, or the availability of something as basic as low-cost sanitary napkins, and the invisibility of women’s needs becomes apparent." Private toilets may increase in number:
"There are signs of change, though, and one of the most surprising may be in the matrimonial market. Four years ago, the Haryana government started its "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign, painting walls across the state with the slogan: 'I won’t allow my daughter to marry into a home without toilets.'
posted by emhutchinson
on Mar 17, 2011 -
34 comments
You stink, therefore I am. Philosophers and psychologists have been
studying the
science of
disgust, and its proper place in the law. Leon Kass, the chairman of the president's
council on bioethics, cites
"the wisdom of repugnance" in arguing against cloning. More recently,
Martha Nussbaum has written a new book,
"Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law," which rejects disgust as a moral guide. She has also written on the role of disgust in the
mutilations of women in Gujarat.
posted by homunculus
on Jul 17, 2004 -
8 comments
The highest suicide rate in the world has been reported among young women in South India by a new study. The research is of major importance, according to the World Health Organization, as it brings to light Asia's suicide problem.
"I was surprised to find the rates were so staggeringly high," says paediatrician Anuradha Bose. “I wonder if it's just another manifestation of the gender bias." Stress factors… affect Indian women in particular, such as issues of marriage and dowry.
How can the WHO address this unacceptable situation for young women in South India and elsewhere? The article notes that studies are under way in other countries where young women are under great social pressures, and more suicide prone, including China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam (and there are many others where this should be researched).
posted by mcgraw
on Apr 2, 2004 -
9 comments
