From: olmstead@steam.uwaterloo.ca (F. Michael Olmstead)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Infanticide in India
Date: 28 Aug 1992 00:15:59 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

Cindy writes:


|>I think that the problem is more related to poverty than to
|>lack of education. Traditionally, the girl child leaves the
|>family when she is married, while the male child will stay
|>in the family for ever and will contribute his earnings
|>to the family. Thus, it makes perfect economic sense for an
|>impoverished family to kill or neglect girl children, because
|>any investment made on the girl child is a waste of money .
|>It makes more sense to invest the already meagre resources
|>on the sons , for they are a good investment.

|>This is the ground reality in India and , I think, in many
|>third world countries.

|>A clear example of this is the traditional custom in Indian
|>households that the women of the family should eat last,
|>after the menfolk have eaten. Obviously, this doesn't matter
|>so much in affluent families where there is enough food to
|>go around for everyone. But one can well imagine what the
|>situation is like in impoverished families : often, it is
|>only leftovers, if that, which are left for the women. Once
|>again, this makes perfect economic sense.

|All this perfect economic sense is going to go out the window
|a generation from now, you know...

|I *don't* think the problem is *just* economic.  I think it is
|symptomatic of the continual dismissal of the value of the work
|that women do, which is true here as well as there.

|--Cindy


I could get in trouble for saying this but I think Cindy is right.  The
premise that economics drives people (mostly men) to treat their women
like shit is very tiring (I have lived in South East Asia and my wife
and oldest child come from a developing nation) Its like saying its
okay to have sex with children in Bangkok because prostitution was there
before Thailand's western influence occurred.  There are certain acts
that can never be justified.  

Regardless of how poor or hungry I was I wouldn't eat first and throw
leftovers to my wife and daughters and I bet there is a hell of a lot of
Indian, Thai, African, etc. men who wouldn't either.

I know the west treats everyone else like shit.  I know things are very
rough.  Poor or not though nobody should be killed or starved because
they are female.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Olmstead		| 	olmstead@sail.uwaterloo.ca            
Civ Eng Undergrad	|----------------------------------------------
University of Waterloo	| "I told you two to quit having water fights"
Waterloo, Ontario	|  french foreign legion captain scolding two  
CANADA			|  of his men in the desert..larson's far side
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