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Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by georgeecollins on Monday April 23, 2018 @07:48PM (#16908517)
It's interesting that there is a similar imbalance in China and India (~35m). That implies to me that the imbalance was not caused by the one child policy, but by sonograms and abortions.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by chaostheory on Monday April 23, 2018 @07:55PM (#16908556)
I could be wrong but the sonograms and abortions are also just a side effect. The real problem is that neither place puts much importance on gender equality. Women have even less opportunities than men over there, compared to the West. That said, things have improved and continue to improve though the pace is really slow
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by ggg9990 on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:38PM (#16908846)
Gender equality in China is much better after decades of the one child policy. Businessmen who would have raised their sons to take their place raised their daughters that way with no sons.

I work with powerful Chinese businesswomen and they are no nonsense tough customers. They also do not have any of the delicate mixing of sexuality and asexuality that American businesswomen need to strike - the Chinese women are all business all the time.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by walshemj on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:44PM (#16908882)
Did you see the recent group photo of the 19th Congress, with apparently zero women?
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by mc32 on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:43PM (#16909683)
That's skewed by the fact that Xi is the first Chinese leader to be born after the establishment of the PRC.

So you won't see any product of the one child policy begun in 1979. It will be quite some time as CCP leaders tend to run on the old side of things.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by chaostheory on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @05:36PM (#16916843)
Assuming that there are about 2 million Chinese who are millionaires or higher, your annecdote only affects up to 0.11602610587% of the population
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by verroq on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:22PM (#16908735)
I was under the impression that gender equality in Chinese society is much better than the west in some respects, espescially the amount of women in STEM.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by sevilo on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:13PM (#16909033)
In some aspects China is more sexist towards women: - girls are still less desirable simply because their children do not carry the last name - people still believe older women = less value whereas older men = more value - women who aren't married by 30 are considered "leftovers"

But in some areas less sexist than western society - you don't take your husband's last name when you marry - you're not expected to quit your job and become a housewife when you have children - girls are expected to be good at math, science and engineering just as much as boys

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by emodendroket on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:42PM (#16908865)
I think it is quite easy to imagine a sexist society where that particular manifestation of sex difference doesn't exist but others do.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by ploxiln on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:07PM (#16908996)
You have the correlation backwards, believe it or not.

Great writing, lots of sources, in http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exagger...

> Do we find that “countries that lack gender equity in school enrollment” and “stereotypes associating science with males” have fewer women in tech?

> No. Galpin investigated the percent of women in computer classes all around the world. Her number of 26% for the US is slightly higher than I usually hear, probably because it’s older (the percent women in computing has actually gone down over time!). The least sexist countries I can think of – Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, etc – all have somewhere around the same number (30%, 20%, and 24%, respectively). The most sexist countries do extremely well on this metric! The highest numbers on the chart are all from non-Western, non-First-World countries that do middling-to-poor on the Gender Development Index: Thailand with 55%, Guyana with 54%, Malaysia with 51%, Iran with 41%, Zimbabwe with 41%, and Mexico with 39%. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is not exactly famous for its deep commitment to gender equality.

> Why is this? It’s a very common and well-replicated finding that the more progressive and gender-equal a country, the larger gender differences in personality of the sort Hyde found become. I agree this is a very strange finding, but it’s definitely true. See eg Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Sex Differences In Big Five Personality Traits Across 55 Cultures:

>> Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (n = 17,637).

> In case you’re wondering, the countries with the highest gender differences in personality are France, Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. The countries with the lowest sex differences are Indonesia, Fiji, and the Congo.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by topmonk on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:30PM (#16909115)
As far as what I heard is that in cultures where a woman can choose watch she wants to do, most will not choose tech.

Whereas, in countries where women are expected to do what society wants them to do, they are forced into tech because that is where the money is, and is how they can best help feed their families.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by chaostheory on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @03:53PM (#16915972)
"[Chinese] Tech companies also often tout the attractive women they’ve hired as incentives for more men to come on board, according to the HRW report. Both Tencent and Baidu were noted to have posted to their social media accounts interviews with male employees who cited having beautiful women around them as an incentive for working there"

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/23/17272620/chinese-tech-com...

Let's not forget the gender pay gap, which imo is the main culprit

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014759671...

"In contrast to the United States and European countries, China has witnessed a widening gender pay gap in the past two decades."

China is a still a very patriarchal society. Much more so than the US or EU.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by throwaway080383 on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:39PM (#16908848)
I got that sense as well. I don't have numbers to back it up, but in grad school and where I currently work, there were very few women, yet it seemed like the ratio of Chinese men to Chinese women was closer to equal than the overall ratio of men to women.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by squeegee7 on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:27PM (#16908772)
In business, too -- there are proportionately more female billionaires.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by hudon on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:57PM (#16908942)
I think you’re both right. Placing less value on baby girls and allowing people to kill their baby girls are together causing there to be less baby girls.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by YetAnotherNick on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:04PM (#16908628)
Of course? Government knows this. It is illegal for doctors to tell the gender before birth in India. In fact, due to weight of it, it is one of the few illegal activities regularly checked by authorities and media, and the culprits are given harsh punishments.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by azernik on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:33PM (#16908811)
The claim about the one-child policy is just that it increases the attractiveness of selective abortion, since you only have one chance at a son.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by glasslion on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @01:16AM (#16910033)
At least in China, it has nothing to do with sonograms or abortions. Chinese doctors are not allowed to tell parents the gender strictly. Female babies are killed after they are born.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by praneshp on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:15PM (#16908699)
It's like quoting a wikipedia article, but there was an episode about this in a LastWeekTonight type show[0]. Two takeaways:

1. One of the southern states (that I'm from) ranks super-high in killing baby girls, despite what one would think intuitively.

2. Doctors offer Levi's style buy 1, get 2nd 50% off style packages for sex-determination test + abortions (both of which are banned). To ensure that parents-to-be get both, they lie that the foetus is a girl.

[0] http://www.satyamevjayate.in/female-foeticide/femalefoeticid..., scroll down for the episode

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by heartbreak on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:13PM (#16909038)
> killing baby girls

Sorry to nitpick, but female foeticide (sex-selective abortion) would be better described as “aborting female fetuses.”

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Monday April 23, 2018 @10:38PM (#16909454)
Rant incoming - this isn't targeted at you, but my observations on this.

I've always found it ridiculous that effectively 1 planck-time can be the difference between a collection of cells and a human and therefore the difference between selfish rights and outraged sorrow.

The idea that you can draw the line arbitrarily along a child's development other than the very moment of inception and call one a self-centered right and the other murder is preposterous.

The very fact that it is the premeditated interference that prevents the baby from continuing to develop should be the light-bulb moment for most discerning and logical individuals. You literally have to kill the baby to stop it from becoming a fully-formed version of itself - that is literally it. You have to kill it to stop it from getting to a point that you 'begin to feel bad'. It is ridiculous.

The fact that, when unimpeded, that baby will grow into an adult individual should be a pretty obvious reminder to people of what they're actually doing.

I've been saying this for a little while, but I'm sure a time will come when society collectively looks back on this period and shudders at the horror of it all.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by jake_the_third on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:06PM (#16909571)
Thank you for saying this. It had always disturbed me how people change the name of what is quite literally ending another human life to something else as a means to soften or discard the moral implication associated with said action. It's disgusting.

Truth be told though, this renaming-bad-things-to-make-them-passable phenomenon isn't only limited to killing unborn children, and it has been going on for a long time.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Canaan on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @10:59AM (#16913112)
'War'...what is it good for?
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Semirhage on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @11:12AM (#16913217)
You may not want to hear this, but the line isn’t so fine or instant in anything except the law. When dealing with laws and regulations you ultimately have a somewhat arbitrary quality because that’s the nature of a line. Speed X is fine and dandy on the roadway, speed X+1 can get you pulled over and heavily fined. What’s the practical difference in 1 kph? Essentially nothing, except that for reasons beyond that difference of 1, a line had to be drawn.

Rational people don’t think that some magical process occurs between one instant and the next as a fetus goes from “ok to abort legally” to “illegal to abort.” The law also isn’t as involved in the spiritual or emotional content of the debate, but the practical implications. As such, law represents a compromise, hopefully a reasonable one.

Part of the problem is that some people look at a fetus and think, “small baby” and others see a potential baby. For some there is a moral imperative to support that potential, and for others there isn’t. Yet others look at a newborn and see a person, others see a potential person. The problem is that this debate is ultimately too emotionally charged for the hard biological reality to enter for most.

As a result, the law picks viability of the fetus as a line, not because of some magical transformation, but for practical reasons. It does this because outlawing abortion in no way stops abortion, it just drives it underground. The law also recognizes that the mother is a fully viable and developed person with their own rights, and (this is going to sound harsh) playing host to a parasitic organism.

Needless to say none of what I’m saying goes over well with people who don’t have a strong background in biology. The idea that the life of the mother might matter more than the life of another potential person doesn’t sit well with some people. The idea that even newborns are less “people” and and more “grub-stage people” tends to be downright offensive to many.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @10:09AM (#16921632)
> Needless to say none of what I’m saying goes over well with people who don’t have a strong background in biology. The idea that the life of the mother might matter more than the life of another potential person doesn’t sit well with some people. The idea that even newborns are less “people” and and more “grub-stage people” tends to be downright offensive to many.

It doesn't go over well for many people with a strong background in biology either, to be fair.

This particular argument tries to skirt the issue by attempting to deny the existence of humanity and, less directly, "real" life by essentially stating that vulnerability removes your right to humanity. If you follow through the principle of the argument this is undeniably its core. For an overwhelming number of obvious reasons, this doesn't stack up either.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Semirhage on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @10:45AM (#16921937)
Denying the humanity of a fetus isn’t denying the humanity of people, and I said nothing about it not being “real life” either. We routinely kill and eat real life that is far more intelligent and empathetic than newborns, but it’s ok because they’re not people. Pigs for example, are intelligent and feeling creatures.

All I’m doing is failing to put human life on a pedestal, while acknowledging the difference between what something currently is vs its potential. A fetus isn’t a person, it’s something with the potential to become a person. Biology and the law both recognize that, religion and sentiment don’t.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @06:34PM (#16926950)
> Denying the humanity of a fetus isn’t denying the humanity of people...

That's a leap from my statement.

> All I’m doing is failing to put human life on a pedestal, while acknowledging the difference between what something currently is vs its potential.

You've only restated that vulnerability removes right to humanity.

> A fetus isn’t a person, it’s something with the potential to become a person. Biology and the law both recognize that, religion and sentiment don’t.

A fetus is a person who's not reached the stage where you can meaningfully communicate. Your argument assigns humanity to lucidity, which is ridiculous.

Additionally, biology doesn't recognise that "it’s something with the potential to become a person", biology merely explains the building blocks, process and method. To say otherwise is to really attempt to twist mere observation to suit your viewpoint.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by rabboRubble on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @12:21AM (#16909825)
> The idea that you can draw the line arbitrarily along a child's development other than the very moment of inception and call one a self-centered right and the other murder is preposterous.

Not preposterous at all. The line is clear: viability outside the womb.

As a woman, I deem legal and safe abortion an exercise of my second amendment rights. If I determine that a separate individual has taken residence inside me contrary to my wishes I have the right to defend my person against that intrusion. Of course I first ask for the person to leave and find suitable accommodation elsewhere. Oh you can't leave on your own? I still don't want you here -- leave, leave now. No? Well I will stand my ground.

I really don't see why (mostly) men have no philosophical qualm with defending their home against a fully alive intruder, yet can not understand why a woman might wish to exercise a similar right over her own body.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @12:53AM (#16909934)
The below may sound a bit harsh, but I'm trying to be clear - apologies in advance. I've got nothing against you or any circumstances you've been in.

> Not preposterous at all. The line is clear: viability outside the womb.

That's not an argument that makes any sense at all, nor does it stack up when put under scrutiny.

What about the viability of an infant that you arbitrarily decide you wish to eject from the home? You ask them to leave; well they can't walk. You ask them to find suitable accommodation elsewhere; well they can't talk. You tell them to feed themselves. Oh, you can't leave on your own? I still don't want you here -- leave, leave now. No?...

What about the viability of a minority group that the government decides they don't want in their country? Lets say it's a bunch of Jews, eh? Follow through with your principle and see where it leads you.

So I'd argue that this is an argument of selfishness, lack of responsibility and willful foolishness - traits which are considered highly unhealthy to self and society.

Putting that aside, the other issue is that this argument completely skips the point at hand - human life. As a society, we deal with human life carefully for a reason - it's beautiful and important - it's something to be cherished and nurtured. Arguments like these try do deny this fact by looking the other way.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @05:23PM (#16916742)
I don't take "personal responsibility", "unborn fetuses are people", "human life matters", etc. arguements in favor of removing women's rights to abortion seriously so long as they completely disregard and/or contribute directly to (and they do, either by omission or by party association): widespread systemic poverty, child hunger, regressive sex education, anti-women legislation and philosophies, destruction of social safety net, constant victim blaming, lies and misinformation campaigns on the LGBT community, and cutting education budgets.

So long as all of those things are being attacked, women need to be having as many abortions as possible.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @09:40AM (#16921401)
> widespread systemic poverty, child hunger, regressive sex education, anti-women legislation and philosophies, destruction of social safety net, constant victim blaming, lies and misinformation campaigns on the LGBT community, and cutting education budgets.

> So long as all of those things are being attacked, women need to be having as many abortions as possible.

Putting aside the bizarre and unfounded argument you just gave - all you've done is again looked the other way when it comes to taking human life. It's like you're sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaiming "lalalala!".

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @10:48AM (#16921965)
> It's like you're sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaiming "lalalala!".

It's absolutely not like that, in fact this is a spot on description of your response.

Politicians who hate LGBT (by words and/or by legislation), fight to regress sex education, fight to made women's health care difficult to acquire, cite obnoxious BS like "family values" while cheating on their wives, soliciting homosexual encounters in restrooms, literally actually molesting children and defending the molesters, unambiguously defending the act of rape (rather than strictly refuting allegations), unanimously voted against net neutrality, budget cuts for education to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, cut the social safety net for impoverished people like single mothers, fetishizing the struggle of poor people with social Darwinism while denying biological Darwinism as fact, all this with waves of jobs bring automated away.

These politicians play lip service to the abortion crowd and get the abortion vote. You can't call yourself "Pro Life" if you want to try to force women to carry unwanted children with one hand while making the world as shitty as possible for both the single mothers and their children with your other hand. You're the one who is sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaming "lalalala!". The entire abortion platform is set up to fuck us all over as soon as the child is born.

I've demonstrated that I actually care about human life, at least 100x more than you. You care about human being born. You immidietly don't give a shit about them the second after they're born.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @06:15PM (#16926794)
> These politicians play lip service to the abortion crowd and get the abortion vote. You can't call yourself "Pro Life" if you want to try to force women to carry unwanted children with one hand while making the world as shitty as possible for both the single mothers and their children with your other hand. You're the one who is sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaming "lalalala!". The entire abortion platform is set up to fuck us all over as soon as the child is born.

You're conflating completely unrelated politics with the point I'm making, as well as assigning them to me.

> I've demonstrated that I actually care about human life, at least 100x more than you. You care about human being born. You immidietly don't give a shit about them the second after they're born.

No you haven't. You're assigning to me the broad spectrum of stupidity of a political viewpoint and not addressing the argument at all.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @07:20PM (#16927318)
> You're conflating completely unrelated politics with the point I'm making, as well as assigning them to me.

Nope, you can't vote in favor of banning abortion without voting for every shitty way republicans want to fuck over minorities. I didn't conflate them, they merged themselves together decades ago. I can't take any anti-abortion arguments seriously so long as they are attached to a long list of horrendous anti-human agendas. At this point, it's extremely difficult to consider the anti-abortion agenda to be anything other than about controlling and discriminating women. If you sincerely cared about babies, you would be completely disgusted by the way they are treated and supported after birth. But you literally only care that they pop-out alive.

There's no argument to consider because nothing about your position is sincere.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Thursday April 26, 2018 @11:24AM (#16932714)
> Nope, you can't vote in favor of banning abortion without voting for every shitty way republicans want to fuck over minorities.

You've set aside reason.

> If you sincerely cared about babies, you would be completely disgusted by the way they are treated and supported after birth.

I am. However, despite this fact I'm not sure you can look past your hyperbole to discuss the points rationally.

> But you literally only care that they pop-out alive.

Where did you get this from? You're just saying random things. I can only assume you're either in a confused rage or you're just trying to misdirect the discussion to prevent rational thought about what I'm saying.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Friday April 27, 2018 @10:42AM (#16941099)
Nope, I'm the rational one here. Rationality would show that you should focus on fixing several of the endless things wrong with this world rather than isolate "baby murder" in a vacuum in a comically distopian with a hypocritical fashion.

I know you're exactly what you're saying. Baby murder bad, why refusing to acknowledge that baby murder abolishionist don't actually care about making the world a better place.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by rabboRubble on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @06:37PM (#16917276)
Amen.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by rabboRubble on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @04:07PM (#16916080)
If I do not control what happens to my body, what freedom do I have? I am not advocating that I individually control the expulsion of an entire group of people at a national level. I demand only control over my own reproductive function.

Women in these United States of America have no paid maternal leave unlike all other countries except 2 others, we have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world on par with Sri Lanka, and until Obamacare rolled around did not have automatic pre-natal care in our health insurance plans. Why should I relinquish my right to self determination for a nation that cares so little for my successful motherhood? The US at a policy level has no skin in the game, yet a large group of its citizens want to tell me what do? Screw that...

We tolerate all sorts of nonsense in the US that ends people's lives in the name of freedom. Just look to the pro-2A crowd. They take no societal accountability for the lives of people in their policy preferences. Why should I accept any less for myself?

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @09:52AM (#16921481)
> If I do not control what happens to my body, what freedom do I have?

This argument is again one that rejects the moral responsibility to the human child growing in the body. The notion that discontent with the situation justifies killing a human doesn't stack up.

The point about the broken USA healthcare system will never justify the killing of unborn children. It also serves as a first-world excuse that is essentially based around inconvenience.

Finally, the argument that "others do horrible things so therefore why can't we do this horrible thing too" doesn't make any kind of sense either.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @11:55AM (#16922759)
It's not really horrible at all, terminating unwanted fetuses. What is horrible is being complelled against your will to bring an unwanted child into this world without the desire or ability to care for it, then knowing how backwards and broken the first world is, let alone even considering the third world, then there are some fucked up religious people who expect you to be a slave to their ideologies, even in a place that's suppose to be so nice they call it the first world.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @06:19PM (#16926825)
> It's not really horrible at all, terminating unwanted fetuses.

This is the crux of the issue though, isn't it. The desperate attempt to de-humanize the child so that, in some twisted way, it's OK to kill it before you feel bad.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @07:10PM (#16927256)
> you feel bad.

I only feel bad for those poor women living as a slave to their authoritarians husband in theocratic distopias and the women who are forced against their will, in the face of a system stacked against both them and their children, to bear an unwanted child because you value the life of the unborn over the lives of the living.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by kingofhdds on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @05:54AM (#16911232)
>Not preposterous at all. >The line is clear: >viability outside the womb.

It doesn't work this easy way. Many people are unviable outside the womb due to illness, trauma or age-related troubles, and yet they are considered humans, anyway. More to that, many (probably, majority) countries have laws punishing for refusing aid to such humans.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by tomp on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @02:03AM (#16910256)
Unless you were raped, tou did invite that individual into your body, so it’s technically not an intruder.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by StellarTabi on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @05:25PM (#16916756)
They didn't invite you, so it's also none of your business.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by rabboRubble on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @04:07PM (#16916084)
Birth control is not 100%.
[dead]
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by rabboRubble on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @03:57PM (#16916008)
Birth control is not 100%. Partners that seem stable prior to a pregnancy suddenly turn violent. Jobs are lost. Your mom who would have helped if you are a single mom, dies. Life threatening illnesses happens. The condition of being pregnancy itself may be trying to kill you. The wanted fetus suffers a condition that will require a lifetime of care you know you will never be able to afford in these rough United States of America. You already have 4 kids and the husband will not take no for an answer and if you have a 5th you will go jump off a bridge.

You willfully ignore the complexities of life.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by apta on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @04:54PM (#16916471)
> Birth control is not 100%.

I know that, and people should realize what they're getting themselves into when having sex that it potentially would lead to pregnancy. Call me old fashioned, but perhaps people shouldn't be having sex outside of marriage if they're not willing to risk getting pregnant.

It becomes a different discussion if the life of the mother is at stake due to pregnancy. In which case, her life takes priority.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Semirhage on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @05:40PM (#16916879)
That’s not so much old fashioned as willfully ignorant of how humans have been comporting themselves for all of recorded history. It isn’t really an opinion as much as a moral and intellectual dodge, sort of like prohibitionists preaching abstinence. I’ve also noticed that so many people lose interest in the life of child the instant it leaves the birth canal. People who thinks it’s a moral imperative to protect s fetus, don’t see, to take similar hard lines on protecting the welfare of children in general. The position seems to hold only so long as someone else is bearing the consequences.

These same people are often against paying a cent in taxes for healthcare, education, food, housing. Those same people don’t even seem to bemoan genocides in places like Rwanda or Sudan, or the Congo until long after they end. To me, it reeks of screwy priorities, and control.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by rabboRubble on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @10:53PM (#16918341)
I know. I find it intolerable to be lectured by the anti-abortion crowd who seem completely okay with the idea of US insurance plans not including pregnancy coverage automatically. Why should men be forced to pay for something they don't use they say. We will be fighting to keep the bare minimum we gained with the ACA and it will likely be a losing battle as with so many other things involving women's reproductive health.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by apta on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @03:27AM (#16919259)
I'm neither republican or democrat, and I find the entire two party system quite bizarre to say the least. That being said, there is no reason to blindly follow either, one can be anti-abortion yet pro health care, education, and so on. Moving the goal posts so to say is not an argument.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by apta on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @03:25AM (#16919248)
The vast majority of your post is a an association fallacy. Believe it or not, people can be anti-abortion generally, yet are interested in protected the welfare of children, and pro paying taxes for healthcare and education and housing, etc. Your post provided no argument whatsoever.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Semirhage on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @10:52AM (#16922011)
Maybe that’s because it wasn’t an argument, or framed as one? “I’ve noticed” and “people often” struck you as an exercise in formal logic? The only part that represented an argument was the assertion of your willful ignorance of human nature and history, which ironically you ignored.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by heartbreak on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:52PM (#16909720)
I’m not about to have an abortion debate on HN. My nitpick was an attempt to clear up any confusion of terms involved. The OP referenced an episode about female foeticide which is, by its definition, different from infanticide. Morality of either is irrelevant.

The confusion has since been cleared up, so there’s no need to drag it on.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by praneshp on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:26PM (#16909636)
(I'm not sure if I'm giving you the right context, or if you already know about it, etc etc, so blanket apology if required)

I understood and didn't take offence at the nitpick mainly due to the fact that foetus vs baby is an important argument in the pro-choice vs pro-life debate in the US; the "women should be allowed to control their bodies" side is usually presented with "should they be allowed to kill a baby to control their body", etc.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by socceroos on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @12:24AM (#16909833)
No apology required. ;)

Yeah, I had read and understood the context and ended up unsure of where to nest my rant so that it was most relevant to being discussed but least intrusive. I think I've missed the mark on that so sorry for the confusion.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by praneshp on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:27PM (#16909107)
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but I was referring to female infanticide, not foeticide.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by heartbreak on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:31PM (#16909123)
The state you’re from ranks highest in female infanticide?! That is terribly sad.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by praneshp on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:49PM (#16909221)
Super-high. Pretty sure there is a handful worse than us, if it matters..
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by ars on Monday April 23, 2018 @10:58PM (#16909545)
And if it was the highest in female abortions it would not be sad?

The end result is identical, and despite being able to see a difference, nonetheless I feel the same way about both situations.

Abortions should be reserved for only the direst of situations.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by voltooid on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @04:57AM (#16911009)
I think that the comment above mentioned killing baby girls because that is a thing. The killing of live born baby girls. You are right, that is different from aborting fetuses. Both these things happen.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Karishma1234 on Monday April 23, 2018 @10:46PM (#16909492)
I personally think this is a good idea. It is better for the well being of the child if parents love him/her instead of having an unwanted child.

Female child is expensive in India and Indians are poor hence not all can afford the luxury of female child.

I absolutely hate the objectification of women as vaginas for our boys. All the discussion around the topic is "we need vaginas for our boys" who will produce babies if we kill all girls?

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by sevilo on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @12:32AM (#16909857)
That’s a terrible justification, girls are only a luxury because society make them to be. Through western societies and modern China, it’s already proven that other than physical strength, women are capable of receiving and making good use of education, can generate decent amount of income to support themselves even without a husband, can rise to leadership in many different fields. But in India and rural China, the opportunities for girls to develope are ripped away from them because of traditional beliefs. Hence growing into “luxury” women who have no skills or desirability other than being vaginas to men.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Karishma1234 on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @02:57AM (#16910476)
Indian parents who do not like girl child will agree with you. Even the most conservative parents do not doubt female ability. It is just that they prove less valuable than male child for following reasons. 1. Parents have to spend more time/money to ensure her safety. 2. The money she earns does not become part of the family but goes to her husband as she leaves house. 3. You invest on her education she get a great job and buys a big house. You don't get to live there her husband gets that house. 4. If she is educated she wants more educated husband which means you have to pay more dowry as there is more competition for highly educated grooms.

Even if your daughter is that kickass smarty pants you stand to lose.

PS - All these problems mellow once the income level of people rise significantly as people marry through love marriage etc. But there are other skews because majority of Indian girls fall in ugly category hence men compete for 5% of girls in love marriage market where as no one goes after the 95% one. Check this : https://www.singledudetravel.com/2013/12/indias-shocking-lac...

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by sevilo on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @03:08AM (#16910523)
again, all the points you listed which make girls more "luxury", I could also argue that society make them the way it is. 1. parents have to spend more money/time to ensure her safety -- because boys in india often don't receive enough education on respecting girls and that they're not objects. Sure, women are more vulnerable to sexual assaults around the world, but it's not like every day I walk from home to school or home to work that I have to worry about getting raped in Canada. 2. the money she earns does not go to the family -- in western cultures, boys don't give money to their parents either. On the opposite spectrum, in modern days China, both boys and girls are expected to share some income with their parents, so the problem that boys = more money for the house does not exist 3. you don't get to live in the house -- again very similar to point 2, in western countries, you don't get to live in your boy's house either 4. with more educated husband you have to pay more dowry, this is a very specific indian thing which I cannot begin to understand as there are already less women than men. In the parents' minds, girls are worth less hence making them having to pay to get rid of their daughters. If girls worth more to them, the situation would perhaps change (again, see families with educated girls that have decent jobs in modern days China, often demanding the groom to pay for the house and car)
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Karishma1234 on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @04:31AM (#16919566)
When you venture into "people should change their mentality" logic you are likely to meet with disappointment. I am saying this with utmost respect for your thought process though. The very reason it is a common mentality is because "it works so far".

> this is a very specific Indian thing which I cannot begin to understand as there are already less women than men.

It is because parents just don't want to get rid of the daughter. They want to use her as a currency to get related to a much richer family than them. That is what makes it a far tougher market.

Think of it like this. You might think you get more sex as 20 year old because of your youth. But in reality a 20 year old is likely to sleep with girls between 18 to 20 year old. But if you are 40 year old your target set becomes 20 to 35 which is much bigger and very likely you might get more sex partners than 20 year old.

If you are a girl with income level X you want a husband whose income level is 2X. The boy can chose any girl from income levels < 2X. In fact higher up you are on economic level you can point your finger to a girl and pick her to marry.

The single "I am not getting a wife" people are essentially at the poorer spectrum they are not uniformly distributed. These are the people sending "show bobs and vegene" messages on facebook !

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by friedButter on Tuesday April 24, 2018 @01:38AM (#16910119)
There are a bunch of subsidies\welfare programs available for female children alone... Its much cheaper to raise a female child than to raise a male child, and dowry is no longer mandatory, it largely comes into play when you're trying to marry up (like say the groom earns 5-10x the wife's salary)
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by Karishma1234 on Thursday April 26, 2018 @01:39PM (#16933929)
In any sensible country such programs would be seen as unconstitutional most certainly in USA. But of course in India sectarian discriminatory laws is a norm. In India if you rape a brahmin child you get N years in prison. If you rape a child from prescribe list of castes you get N+3 years in jail.

> like say the groom earns 5-10x the wife's salary Correct and all girls pay this dowry willingly. No one has forced them to marry up. They can marry equal or below.

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by praneshp on Monday April 23, 2018 @11:32PM (#16909648)
> hence not all can afford the luxury of female child.

Heh, another fix for that is to work towards making a female child not a luxury

Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by ggg9990 on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:35PM (#16908824)
How could the one child policy create a gender imbalance? Every child born has a 50% probability of being either gender.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by stevenwoo on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:50PM (#16908914)
Female children can be a burden in that a dowry is expected to be paid at a marriage in certain cultures and males might be expected to support the parents in certain cultures for another source of preference. There is also the culture that might prefer lineage to be passed down via males and some cultures prefer a male child to help in rural area manual labour around the home. These are mentioned in the article a bit - add to that the ability to determine the gender of a baby before birth and the ability to perform an abortion after determining gender and while technically against the rules in both nations, a gender based abortion will help create the gender imbalance. There's also a natural slight skew to having male babies among humans, it's much closer to 50/50 on conception but by birth it's not due to higher female mortality in the womb.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by yorwba on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:25PM (#16909098)
China actually has the opposite dowry problem: it's the male side that's expected to pay, and because of the skewed gender ratio, prices have risen. There are now families who don't want to have a son because they wouldn't be able to marry him off.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by kaishiro on Monday April 23, 2018 @08:43PM (#16908871)
The assumption in this case would have been that the birth parents are made aware of the gender before birth and then are able to make a decision as to whether to abort and attempt for a male, or keep the female feotus.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by sevilo on Monday April 23, 2018 @09:07PM (#16908999)
why is this comment down voted by people? When I was born doctors were forbidden for reveal the gender of the baby. If anything I actually think one child policy helped the gender imbalance, before then, people could have how many ever children they want and abort how many ever baby girls they desired.
Re:China, India grapple with the consequences too many men by infinite8s on Wednesday April 25, 2018 @06:45AM (#16920289)
Female infanticide.