"Gender apartheid"
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 6:17PM Johann Hari's piece makes for difficult reading at times, but that is part of the reason why it is a must-read:
As soon as I started reading this cry against the global wasting of women's lives, I could smell Shahnaz's face—what was left of it—again. By the time I met her in a hospital in Bangladesh, Shahnaz's face flesh was a mess of charred meat: Her skin, the soft tissue of her cheeks, and the bones beneath had been burned away. Her nose was gone, replaced by two flared holes. Her lips hung down over her chin like melted wax. Her left eyelid couldn't close, so a trail of tears was forever slowly tracking down over the wounds. Shahnaz was 21 years old, and her husband had just thrown acid in her face.
Her "crime"? To insist on continuing her studies—she loved science and poetry—when her husband wanted her to have babies. She smelled of a day-old barbecue left out in the rain.
Today, now, more than 100 million women are missing. They have vanished. In normal circumstances, women live longer than men—but China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population, India has 108, and Pakistan has 111. Where have these women gone? They have been killed or allowed to die. Medical treatment is often reserved for boys, while violence against women is routine. More girls are killed in this "gendercide" each decade than in all the genocides of the 20th century. This year, another 2 million girls will "disappear."
How any of the things mentioned in the article is acceptable to us today boggles the mind, and shows how far we still have to go make just so women are treated as equals. Follow the link and read the entire article.
Johann Hari, gender apartheid, gendercide in AWARE, Women's rights
Reader Comments (1)
This reminds me of a slightly different issue - a widening income gap.
On one end of the spectrum you have people who are worth their weight in gold, and on the other, you have people who just want their weight in bread.
In some cultures equal opportunities already exist for women. So much so that I find it hard to believe they are being oppressed in a manner than fills me with indignant anger. My empathy level drops further when the societal norm is such that equal oppoprtunities should be enforced, yet gender roles are still in effect.
Of course, there are also other cultures where it is hard to ignore the fact that women are being discriminated against.
I understand that there is preference for males in some cultures, like Chinese and Indian, for certain functions such as carrying on the family name or lighting of funeral pyres. Maybe this exacerbates the opinion that women are not as important as men.
We know that in cultures with higher levels of education the discrimination is not so apparent. But I wonder if this discrimination is also brought about by more material needs like money.