Cultural Sex Selection: No Harm, No Foul?
Emily Willingham asks an important question as to whether the apparent cultural preference toward having a male child in the family among Asian-Americans represents a harm--either to Asian-American girls, or simply to women generally. I'm inclined to think the latter. But we'll let you decide:
A New York Times story reports that data on birth rates among Asian Americans hint at a bias for boys. According to the report, some Asian-American families appear to be particularly prone to selection for a boy child if they had a girl the first time around. With each successive girl, the odds that the next child will be a boy increase. Of course, the odds should be 50:50 for each birth, but by the third child, if the first two were girls, the ratio of boys to girls among Asian Americans climbs to 1.51:1, in favor of boys. The article states that this outcome results from families having opted for sex selection, either through abortion or in vitro fertilization, to ensure that they'd have a boy.
For families that opt for those interventions, all I have to ask is, "What, exactly, is wrong with having girls?" The feminist in me cries out, "Girls are just as good as boys!" And we are. End of story.
A doctor quoted in the article recognizes the cultural associations of these choices among the Asian-American population, and one expert predicts that with assimilation, the ratio will subside to the near 1:1 that Nature, in her infinite wisdom, intended. China is already having to grapple with its 120 males for every 100 females as a result of such selection. But the doctor, Jeffrey Steinberg, who is the medical director of a fertility clinic that performs sex selection procedures, also is quoted in the NYT piece as saying, "Whether we agree with it, it's not harming anyone."
I beg to differ. As a former girl and current woman, I'd say that countenancing these choices with an excuse like that perpetuates biological sexism. It relegates girls to second-class citizens and second-class biological entities even before conception. It's one thing to fight for equality as a full-grown, existing woman. It's another thing to have to view the battle as beginning pre-conception or in utero against an elusive foe of culturalism or casual acceptance of sexism, especially when we must also struggle against the unsupported assumption that artificial sexual selection does no harm. Ask China if it does harm. Ask a girl if she finds these attitudes harmful. It does do harm, harm to what should be about half of the population, if Nature were allowed to have her way.
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Good article. However, I am not sure that this is tantomount to biological sexism. I don't feel that "...it relegates girls to second-class citizens and second-class biological entities even before conception..." but rather underscores that this is already "policy" in many cultures where name, honor, property, etc. are passed down through the male line. That is where change would have to begin, if change were desired. I daresay that if the United States placed even a slight bit more emphasis on wealth then we'd all be gender-picking our children -- men make more for the same job, afterall (as you well know).
- by Jennaviere on Jun 17, 2009 at 11:26 AM | link
Thanks for the comment. I agree that it underscores those tacit policies in the cultures you mention. But I also think that having a medical professional assume that it "does no harm" and therefore passively countenancing the choice does do harm and does perpetuate the relegation of females to the second class, under the weight of centuries of twisted ideas about women's capacity to handle the honor, the name, and the property.
Interesting point about wealth. I'd argue that one way to continue the shift to more equivalent pay for women is...to have more women fighting for it and showing that they are, indeed, just as good as men. If the numbers of men overwhelm those of women in that struggle, it would be just one of many ways that a skewed sex ratio simply isn't a harmless thing.
Thanks again for commenting.
- by Emily Willingham on Jun 17, 2009 at 8:36 PM | link
This is an extremely interesting and, I think, complex issue. I agree that the claim that the procedures don't harm anyone is pretty implausible - it seems obvious to me that the practice of selecting for boys reinforces prevailing sexism, at least within the communities in which it is accepted as reflecting an existing cultural norm of male dominance or female inferiority. But the question of whether individual instances of sex selection are wrong, and the further question whether to blame those parents who select for boys, or the doctors who carry out their wishes, raise a number of difficult issues.
First, in China and other countries, opportunities for girls are much more limited relative to opportunities for boys than is the case in the U.S. This is a serious injustice that ought to be eliminated, but no couple can accomplish this on their own, and their own survival in old age may depend on having a male child to support them. Faced with such circumstances, the harm caused to girls by sex selection may be overridden by other morally relevant factors. Such couples face a dilemma: by opting for sex selection they contribute to reinforcing existing injustices that can only be eliminated by widespread changes in personal behavior and the cultural norms that are partly constituted by such behavior; but they know that such widespread changes will not occur anytime soon, and so they have powerful (and morally relevant) reasons for acting in a way that actually reinforces the injustices. This seems like a classic collective action problem, and assessing what individuals should (or are morally permitted to) do in such situations is a notoriously difficult task.
For couples in the U.S., however, the situation seems very different, and the possible justifications for sex selection much more limited. Still, many people think that if a couple has already had two children of one sex, it is permissible to choose to select for a child of the other sex in order to balance out the family. This certainly seems a reasonable position in the case of a family that chooses to select for a girl after having two male children, in particular in a society in which women suffer from inequalities - such a choice may be not only permissible, but supererogatory. It is possible to claim that sex selection is never permissible, but this strikes me as implausible. If a couple has had many children of of one sex, it seems permissible to select for the other sex for reasons of family balance. This is, at least, far less suspect than selecting for one sex on the basis of a harmful cultural norm.
I'd be interested to know whether there is a tendency among Asian-Americans (or any other group) to select for boys when having their first child. This would eliminate the possibility that the choice is made in order to balance the family, and would therefore be more suspect.
- by Brian Berkey on Jun 18, 2009 at 12:49 AM | link
Brian...those also are great points, especially the tradeoffs that may apply for parents in countries like China. We could wade in deep into that one.
You raise a very interesting question in the final paragraph. I can't recall now if the study addressed that question or not. I would also wonder how this question applies in any US population or group.
Thanks for commenting.
- by Emily Willingham on Jun 30, 2009 at 4:12 PM | link