Saturday, December 5, 2015

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Let there be equal number of males and females' that was published in Newsband

Let there be equal number of males and females
The Indian desire for a male child, even if at the exclusion of a female child, is widespread and well-established. In India, a larger number of boys than girls are born. Pre-natal sex selection is leading to more boys being born. The push for smaller families is making pre-natal sex selection more common. Families chose in the past to have repeated pregnancies until a male child was born. But now as smaller families become a social norm, families are being pushed towards artificial methods of ensuring a male offspring. Smaller families are more likely to have more boys than girls, while the larger ones have more girls than boys.
Let there be a meaningful conversation on gender equality. Gender inequality is the most serious problem. If this inequality continues, the future generation might have to suffer. Government should take the initiatives to make some schemes and some programs so that the girl child is accepted in our society.
Our films always display women as an appendix rather than an integral part. Take any modern day films and the heroine is made to do some "item" numbers or expose her belly while the entire focus is on the worthless hero. Stop adoring such films and filmstars and eventually the producers will get the message. Along with this boycott, spread the awareness that GOD can create only two species of humans - female or male, thats it. So accept whatever child is born and give that child a good education and imbibe good values so that the child will eventually become an asset to the country.
Women insecurity is one of the issues that fuels the favouring for a boy child. Until and unless the security threats around a women from both domestic and society diminishes, desire for a girl child would remain a vulnerable choice in minds of both middle class and lower class citizens. In most of the cases, the atrocities hurled upon women goes unreported and no proper justice is availed. The girl's family bears the burden of trauma. Women are looked upon as the honour of an Indian family, which seems to be a matter of pride. But, a blot (in form of threats) on this honour figure demotivates the family for bearing girl child.
Actually this is a very serious issue that must be addressed immediately without further delay. The government must take stricter measures to curb the menace of pre-natal sex determination which is the root cause of female feticide. And laws must be enacted like China to limit the number of children in each family to two. This would help lowering the population growth and at the same time, people won't keep on having children in the hope of a son. A skewed sex ratio can become a major psychological cause of rape, physical abuse and crimes against women. Another way to improve sex ratio in the country is by implementing certain schemes for the girl chid right from the time of birth - allowance for the upbringing, education and consequently marriage of girls in case of the BPL population.

China is currently suffering from the long term results of this type of social outlook. The one child policy had encouraged families to only desire boys. However now there is a disproportion in gender ratio leaving a lot of young bachelors without brides. Nature is programed to maintain the optimal 1-1 reproduction rate. Favoring one gender over another will just lead to an unintended decline in population.

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