Female Infanticide in China

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Female Infanticide in China Throughout Chinese history families have always valued males over females. Males could help harvest the fields, bring in a dowry, and carry down the surname to future generations. This has led to a major problem in present-day China: Female infanticide. Female infanticide, caused by many factors such as abortion and the One-Child Policy in China, will lead to a significant gender imbalance, a shortage of wives, and a premature senior citizen class unless acted upon by the government. Female infanticide became more prevalent in the 1900’s. It was considered a disappointment to a family to have a baby girl. The most common method before the discovery of abortion was drowning the girls. This was done by plunging the baby headfirst into a pot of water until the baby died from suffocation. Another method was to suffocate a child in ashes or by covering her mouth with a paper soaked with vinegar to cut off oxygen to the body. Other methods included crushing the child and starving the child to death. In the 1900’s, infanticide was already illegal. In rural areas girls were killed soon after birth and passed off as stillbirths so that the government would not find out (Mungello). The truth is hard to believe. But girls were killed for a reason. Some girls were killed for physical defects. Most of the time, however, girls were killed because of economic and cultural reasons. At marriage, the female’s family must give the male’s family an expensive dowry (Mungello). After marriage, a wife was considered almost as a slave to her husband; she must bow down to her husband and respect her husband’s parents even more (Yuan). Female infanticide began in China as early as 1650 but became a major issue after the One-Child Policy in 1979. The One-Child Policy was designed as an inexpensive and easy birth control plan that allowed each family

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