Women Go 'Missing' by the Millions

International Herald Tribune ^ | 3/25/05 | Ayaan Hirsi Ali

[JAWs]

As I was preparing for this article, I asked a friend who is Jewish if it was appropriate to use the term "holocaust" to portray the worldwide violence against women. He was startled. But when I read him the figures in a 2004 policy paper published by the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, he said yes, without hesitation.

One United Nations estimate says from 113 million to 200 million women around the world are demographically "missing." Every year, from 1.5 million to 3 million women and girls lose their lives as a result of gender-based violence or neglect.

How could this possibly be true? Here are some of the factors:

In countries where the birth of a boy is considered a gift and the birth of a girl a curse from the gods, selective abortion and infanticide eliminate female babies.

Young girls die disproportionately from neglect because food and medical attention is given first to brothers, fathers, husbands and sons.

In countries where women are considered the property of men, their fathers and brothers can murder them for choosing their own sexual partners. These are called "honor" killings, though honor has nothing to do with it.

[riverdawg]

There is no doubt that feticide, infanticide, and honor killings account for some of the imbalanced gender ratio (males >> females) we observe in many countries. However, there is an interesting hypothesis in the epidemiology literature claiming that this imbalance is due in part (and in some countries, substantially) to the prevalence of hepatitis B, carriers of which are much more likely to have sons than daughters. The exact mechanism for this is not certain, but there seems to be a strong connection to hormonal imbalance at conception that is affected by the hepatitis B virus.

[linda_22003]

I take it you've seen this article from Emily Oster at Harvard, on this subject? http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~eoster/hepb.pdf

[colorado tanker]

It means that the world is short 113-200 million women based on computations abased on gender numbers unskewed by unnatural factors that lead to the premature deaths or outright murders of many girls.

It's a very real number, but includes one other major factor - selective abortion of female fetuses and infanticide of live female births. This practice is widespread in China and India, among other countries.

The practices described in the article have still more implications, particularly as to China. What happens to the stability of a society where large numbers of men cannot find a mate? Does it turn to crime, warlordism, nationalism and/or foreign conquest? No one knows, yet.

[riverdawg]

"I take it you've seen this article from Emily Oster at Harvard, on this subject."
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~eoster/hepb.pdf

Yes, I heard Oster present this paper last year. At her seminar, I mentioned the possible connection of hepatitis B to testosterone levels at conception. There are factors other than hepatitis B affecting hormonal balance that also appear to have similar consequences for sex ratio.

[gafusa]

She is a politician, not a reporter. She is try to bring attention to a good cause rather than make an objective report.

[sandbar]

It IS frightening, because my girls are pretty, but not being pretty isn't a surefire thing to not be attacked. I am sick with worry as we are moving the girls to a bigger room, further away from my bedroom. It makes me nervous, but I know it has to be done as they are outgrowing sharing the one room and not enough rooms for them to each have their own. Or not enough money to buy TV for two rooms. So we are installing local alarms on their windows and extra guard locks on the door to the outside. Yikes, how do people let their kids drive and stuff!?! I'm so overprotective, but the news stories scare the heck out of me.