Divided we fall

In this era of gender equality, why do families care so much about the gender of their baby? Or better yet, why do Americans still favor boys over girls? America claims that it is a united nation where all are equal, yet males continue to be viewed as superior to females.

According to a poll done by Gallup, in 1941, 38 percent of Americans hoped for a boy compared to the 24 percent who wanted a girl. Similarly, in 2011, 40 percent wanted a boy whereas 28 percent preferred a girl.

Nearly seventy years later and men are still the favored gender.

The term sex-selective abortion means the termination of a pregnancy based on the predicted gender of the baby.

According to the American Economic Association, evidence of sex selection is being brought to light. Since the 1980s, there has been an unusually high birth rate of boys born to Chinese and Indian mothers. Data shows that Asian-Indian mothers are significantly more likely to terminate a pregnancy after previously only given birth to girls. The boy-birth percentages show that there are over 2,000 “missing” Chinese and Indian girls in the United States from 1991-2004.

As reported by the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (PNCI), the three most dangerous words in the world are “It’s a girl” for female babies living in China and India. Babies that are predicted to be female are commonly declared a death sentence simply because of their gender.

In 1969, when the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Population Council convened to talk about efficient ways of controlling the population, they came to the consensus that sex selection abortion would be the most “effective, uncontroversial and ethical way of reducing the global population.” In the countries where this is practiced, there are significant differences in the amount of women compared to men. Fewer young girls, fewer mothers, fewer wives, and fewer females altogether.

This decrease in women makes it harder for men to find wives, which leads to the increase of sex trafficking and the forced selling of brides.

Males really are preferred to the point of killing off babies that are predicted to be female. Despite the immorality, this femicidal action continues to happen.

The belief that men are better than women is outdated and illegitimate in today’s culture. It’s okay to prefer having one gender over the other, but to kill simply because of it is wrong. When a homicide or suicide occurs, it’s all over the news. However, when femicide happens and kills over 2,000 females, it is pushed to the side and forgotten immediately, or not even thought of at all.

We call ourselves a united country. United we should stand, yet divided we continue to fall.