Comments on: China: Too Many Men

By: Simeon Trieu

Simeon Trieu — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:55:05 +0000

Tote bags. Now there’s a novel idea. I never knew they even had this kind of industry. Rather than kill your baby, why not sell your baby to a baby smuggler? I suppose you could consider it a better alternative than infanticide. I do think, however, that this is more of a problem among the rural, uneducated people. University educated people understand the ramifications of such an action. But unfortunately, only about 10% of Chinese attempt or complete the university. Again, as we see from China as well as India, education holds the key to the society’s problems on many levels. Now we begin to understand why education reform is among the leading changes Chinese want to see in their society.

By: Robyn Bowie

Robyn Bowie — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:18:10 +0000

A country with too many men is a scary thought. Unfortunately female infanticide has existed throughout the world for a long time. It is definitely attitudes in these cultures that value men more than women that need to be changed. The Community Services Guild group that operates in India has a good tactic of teaching young girls and their mothers about the value of women. The attitude changes will come easier with the next generations, especially in places where it is already so deeply ingrained with the older generations. However, the governments of these places need to help give females more value by taking some of the burden off of the families. Offering money to families with female children is a good start, but it needs to be better implemented, so it is an easier option than simply aborting the female fetuses. Also, laws regarding gender-selective abortion need to much stricter, as do laws about illegally performed abortions for the safety of the mothers. Female infanticide is a huge problem, which needs to be addressed on many levels by both of these countries, especially as they become more and more important on the world stage.

By: gary chou on his blackberry

gary chou on his blackberry — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:20:08 +0000

Amy did you write this post? It was very well written!

I really don’t understand why would people in India and China value boys over girls. I personally value girls far, far more than boys. In fact, I wish there is an opposite gender imbalance in our program. One could only wish.

Ok fine, I was just kidding. I can’t believe that they put babies in plastic bag on top of bus…!?!? That is just unthinkable!

This is an example of people interfering nature and while they think they are smart and that they have come up with this great idea and elaborate system of ensuring the country not overpopulation, and at the end it comes back to hunt them.

I too think an all man society is extremely dangerous. Women serve many function in a society men are insufficient to serve. The most important one, from evolution biology point of view, is the continuance of life.

Men are strong and tough, they fight with pride. They are good at getting things done, dangers out of the way, but they cannot swallow shame and loss. Women on the other hands are flexible, soft, and in that they have strength and persistence.

When a man loses everything, he commits suicide, because his strongness when broken, is forever crushed. Like steel, it might penetrate rock, but when it breaks, it breaks hard. Women are like water. They are soft and they can’t fight as hard, but they don’t fall down or commit suicide. When they fail, they can better endure the shame and low and sustain life and continue new life.

I think this has to do with how they reproduce too. Men only need 5 minutes to reproduce (well maybe 2 hours for me) and women take 10 month. The implication is that women are given with a much stronger sense of duty to raise offspring. Mothers generally care about their newborn more than fathers. A society without enough wives/mothers will have unhealthy reproductive culture. A society without enough males on the other hand is less dangerous, because women value harmony and teamwork than men. Men need people to loop up to them and praise and worship them while women are more emotionally self-sufficient.

A society with a lot more women has been the norm throughout history due to warring. Generally speaking polygamy comes out of too many men die from wars. Perhaps what China should do is a reversed polygamy. But if they do that, maybe girls in our program will all pursue their MBA degree in China instead.

Jokingly,

By: Witold Sadowski

Witold Sadowski — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:30:12 +0000

According to this article by ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/story?id=3024044&page=1), pollution levels maybe to blame for the recent decline ratio of male to female births (less males to females born)… so maybe with all the pollution currently being generated in China, this will actually FIX the imbalance problem.

Maybe it’s true… every cloud (or be it a smog haze) has it’s silver lining.

By: Sarah Ybarra

Sarah Ybarra — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:27:53 +0000

Too many menâ€¦ doesn’t sound like a problem to me! There are definitely gender imbalances here in the U.S., and all over the world. I think this can be attributed to the fact that males and females have assumed traditional roles for many years. These roles have created norms by which our society lives by. American men are often regarded as more valuable than women, who have an equal level of skill, in the workplace. However, with more women taking on higher level positions things have, and will continue to improve. Women are creating more opportunities for themselves and causing the imbalance to level out a bit. Unfortunately, this is not the case throughout the world. there are many countries such as China that have not been as progressive and continue to devalue females. It makes me very sad to know that parent are selling their daughters, and that some of these babies are being killed. It is disturbing to see such disregard for human lives, regardless of sex. The disproportionate number of males to females has caused the demand for women to increase. I bet we will begin to see a decrease in the dowry paid by a bride’s family. This rise in female’s value certainly doesn’t apply to all aspects of Chinese life. I think that the mere fact that the value of women is based on having sufficient brides for men gives a pretty good indication of a woman’s traditional role in Chinese society.

By: Andrew Steen

Andrew Steen — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:58:26 +0000

That’s awful. There must be a better way to control population than by killing female babies.
Hey Amy, your post is similar to mine in a few ways. (below yours on the main blog)

By: Sin-Yaw Wang

Sin-Yaw Wang — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:17:05 +0000

Gender imbalance tends to fix itself over time.

By: Andria Greenlee

Andria Greenlee — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:22:23 +0000

Very interesting post Amy. Here’s a suggestion for China, send some of those men over here! Just kidding, the CBS article does raise a serious issue for the future of women in Chinese business. I rarely think about my gender as a factor in my job marketability, as all of the women I know my age have gone to college, and most to graduate school. I wonder how Chinese universities view this male surplus. Are they admitting equal amounts of men and women to their programs, despite the imbalance in population? It is important that the Chinese encourage female education, as these universities currently hold China’s future management talent. Without equal representation in universities, female infiltration into business will be limited.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over our lifetime. The chances of having a male vs. female baby with only one shot are 50/50 so I don’t see how the female population will catch up with the one baby per family law.

With the massive capitalization that is occurring in China, its leaders are being exposed to many cultures where women are sitting as CEO of major companies. Hopefully this will help China realize that not only are women necessary to bear children, they are also a huge untapped resource for business development.