While scrolling on my Facebook page I came across yet another murder of a woman as she failed to give birth to a male child. An apparently happy marriage went down the hill when the second child was born. It was a little girl! The taunts of family and friends were too much to bear and the husband more so after the second daughter and the he kicked his wife to death. The blame for the gender of the child was once again laid on the innocent shoulders of the wife. What this incident shows once again is the total failure of all campaigns aimed at removing the prejudices against the girl child.
Not matter how many Satyamev Jayate kind of programmes we have, mindsets will not change unless issues are addressed in a different way. I have written about this issue many times. My approach is slightly different as I feel that we have first and foremost to free women from the scientifically wrong burden of determining the sex of the child. The X/Y story has to be told loud and clear. The fact that women do not have the Y chromosome and therefore cannot produce a son has to be screamed from every roof top. The softer approach of trying to enhance the value of daughters has failed miserably. Programmes like Satyamev Jayate is just a middle feel good show. An extremely interesting critique of the programme can be found in this article that I urge you to read. The author states: Every Sunday we watch programs sanitised to suit middle-class taste buds. We cry. We feel a little guilt, but hardly any anger. If we’re feeling extra lucky, we’ll send an SMS so that our Rs 2 goes to the cause. We might even donate to the said NGO once in a while. But the reality remains unchanged. Post the episode on the important of daughters one has heard of umpteen murders of wives who failed to give birth to daughters.
So where is the solution. One should maybe try and dissect the situation with dispassion. Why are daughters unwanted? And please do not give me the c*** about lineage and succession and upholding the name. Women do as well if not better. And if that were the reason then for Pete sake we are not all kings or feudal lords. Girls are unwanted because the skewed marriage drama we have is unfairly loaded towards the girl’s side. I wonder, as I have written before, whether there would be male foeticides if the whole marriage game was turned on its head! So girls seem to be unwanted because you need spend on their food, clothing, education etc and then also on their weddings. Then there is the terrible mindset of girls being the holder of the family’s honour. Let us be honest and word it differently: if a girl steps out of line you may have a pregnancy on your hands whereas the boy goes scot-free. So maybe these are the issues that need to be talked about.
Everyone knows that women are essential to life itself. The mothers of the so beloved sons will one day go looking for brides for them in the hope that they produce them grandsons. Is this not an absurd situation to say the least. Maybe it is also time this absurdity is brought center stage. The mother we all love are also girls. Where would we have been had they been aborted!
The situation is becoming perilous and something needs to be done. Let us begin with the X/Y story.
