Quick Facts- Gendercide

Gendercide in China

Females in China are constantly bombarded with the sexist injustices put into place by the patterns of tradition.  Female gendercide, a practice which evolved in China from the Chinese government’s one-child policy, is the killing of females, especially as infants and babies, in favor of males.  Chinese families prefer sons for numerous reasons:

1.       Traditional families share a preference of sons over daughters (The Economist).

2.       Males’ physical abilities allow them to assist his family in manual labor – a profession usually avoided by women (Whiteford).

3.      A family’s son will continue the family’s line and take care of his elders in old age (The Economist).

Below are some important facts about gendercide in Chinese society:

·         Since 1949 – thirty years before the installation of the one-child policy, gendercide, as well as infanticide, among females has been common (Fitzpatrick).

·         In 1979, the Chinese government put into place its one-child policy, restricting most families to only a single child, and gendercide became even more popular (Fitzpatrcik).

·         In China, the female infants and fetuses victimized by gendercide are most often killed by abortion or infanticide (Bojang).

In January of 2012, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) conducted a study of the long-term effects of female gendercide in China.  The following include the results of this study:

·         In 2020, ten years after the study was conducted, one in five Chinese men will be unable to find a wife (The Economist).

·         In that same year, it is also highly probable that China’s population will be equal to the young male population of America as a result of the subsequent diminishing of China’s female population (The Economist).

·         The norm of sex ratios lies between 103 and 106 males born for every 100 females born.  In 2010, China’s sex ratio was 123 males born to 100 females (The Economist).

·         As sex ratios in China increase, crime rates rise as well.  Many of these crimes concern women: “bride abduction, the trafficking of women, rape and prostitution” (The Economist).