Gender inequality is present all over the world. However, the primary preference for a male child over a female one is deeply entrenched in India. India is culturally and religiously a prosperous country and the originator of some of the world’s rich religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Indians worship several forms of female deities like Goddess Durga, Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess Saraswati, etc. However, the contradictory element lies in the mindset of some Indians who, despite worshipping the divine female deities, show an aversion towards the woman in their own lives.
As per the national statistics, the national average is 917 girls for 1,000 males. In some villages, this ratio is skewed to 500 females for 1000 males. To add to it, there are around 70 villages where girls have not been born in the last ten years. The point to highlight is sex selection mechanisms where people abort the female fetus before taking or sometimes abandon the girl baby after birth. India, along with China and a few other countries, has created a law that says, “Sex determination is illegal,” and no medical practitioners can detect the gender of the fetus before birth.
However strict the law may be, people figure out some illegal route to break the law and determine the gender of the fetus. In some rural areas, a few older women follow some ancient techniques to select the gender of the fetus by simply touching the pregnant woman’s stomach and feeling the pulse of the fetus.
There can be several ways to determine the gender, but all result in a single thing if it is a female fetus, it needs to be aborted as the female child is least wanted in most cases.
As per the national census, the Indian rural population stands at approximately 66.5% of the total. The average literacy rate is around 74%, with a lower one of 66.5% for women; this rate varies from state to state and urban and rural areas. The urge to educate the female child is very low in most places in India as the girl child is meant to get married as early as possible and look after the fa
Why is Indian society still so much after having a male child?
