India's Missing Women (1 Viewer)

[Bellatrix]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2022818,00.html

It's estimated that, in India alone, a combination of feticide and infanticide is kiling 930,000 female babies every year. That's more than the total number of deaths in the three years of the Famine. Every year.

 

[coraline]

"Before sex-selective abortion was outlawed in 1994, clinics would advertise terminating girls as "spend 3,000 now and save 300,000 later".


JESUS

Did you hear about the Trocaire ad being banned ?
Their Lent campaign this year is about gender equality, the ad has been pulled from all tv and radio stations except RTE for being supposedly too political.
BCI idiots.

http://redmum.blogspot.com/2007/03/happy-international-womens-day.html

 

[Goff]

Belle, I saw that earlier. It's shocking. More than that.


Coraline:
Re the BCI thing...
I don't actually believe the BCI are correct in this regard but I also don't think that RTE have the right to over-rule a regulatory body.

I think there's more to this than we're being told. The next few days will tell.

 

[mazzyianne]

Did you hear about the Trocaire ad being banned ?
Their Lent campaign this year is about gender equality, the ad has been pulled from all tv and radio stations except RTE for being supposedly too political.
BCI idiots.

It's so completely insane they banned it.

You can read the response of Trocaire and others here:

http://trocaire.org/news/latestnews.php

You can hear the ad or see the TV version here:

http://www.lent.ie/News/trocaire-lent-tv-and-radio.php

If you wish to write to the BCI asking them to reconsider their
ruling you can email:

[email protected]

fuggin jerks!

 

[jane]

Not to drag this away from the original topic, but John Waters was on Newstalk yesterday morning, going, "Even I think this is extreme! Even I'll admit that there are serious gender inequalities in the developing world!" I mean, if even overmedicated nutjob misogynists will freely admit it, maybe they woudl do well to realise that this is not just some attempt by Western feminists to infiltrate a Catholic charity. And seeing as Trocaire is run by bishops -- if even the church highlights this as an issue...

I think it's amazing that someone in the BCI thinks we're dumb enough to believe that charity is generally apolitical, and this is anomalous. It's no more political than last year's child labour campaign, or Barnardo's, or the SPCA, and it's not less political, either.

Additionally interesting is that we live in the developed West, where people like John Waters can happily go around barking about how feminists are just being petty and whinging about nothing. But if there were gender equality in the West, no one would have any trouble with people's concerns about it in the developing world.

It's bullshit, and I agree that there must be more to this than we're being told. How upsetting. And who suffers in the end? Not us. We can sit here being angry, but ultimately, it's Trocaire's beneficiaries who will suffer even more for someone's petty decision.

 

[lucky_dresden]

I don't know. Yis are all racist. We're multicultural now and have to respect the ways of all foreigners, in fact, value them above white western globalising imperialism.

I thought that as a white middle aged male it was all my fault anyway.

 

[ponderosa]

I don't know. Yis are all racist. We're multicultural now and have to respect the ways of all foreigners, in fact, value them above white western globalising imperialism.

I thought that as a white middle aged male it was all my fault anyway.

Hallo. I figure you're probobly joking or didn't read the original post but if 'respecting the ways of all foreigners' means accepting the systematic slaughter of thousands of presumably healthy baby girls for no other reason than the fact they are girls then here's me being disrespectful. talk about valuing the 'ways' of foreigners, how about valuing the lives of women.

Happy International Women's Day :heart:

ps. if you are joking.... that's ... gas

 

[coraline]

Belle, I saw that earlier. It's shocking. More than that.


Coraline:
Re the BCI thing...
I don't actually believe the BCI are correct in this regard but I also don't think that RTE have the right to over-rule a regulatory body.

I think there's more to this than we're being told. The next few days will tell.

I don't think its that RTE are overruling the ridiculous BCI decision, its that they are not governed by them, at least thats the way I heard it.

 

[jane]

I don't think its that RTE are overruling the ridiculous BCI decision, its that they are not governed by them, at least thats the way I heard it.

Yeah, RTE are self-regulating, so they don't have to comply to the rulings of the BCI. I'm sure they could stop running it if they wanted to, and if they agreed that the BCI have a point, but obviously, they think it's better to run it. Funny, the pulling of the ad is far more political than the ad itself.

 

[Goff]

I think RTE are making a political statement. That's the worrying thing to me.

 

[jane]

Political how? How is RTE not pulling the ad any more political than what the BCI is doing? I don't buy that whole, "It violates the regulations, therefore because someone queried it, our hands are tied." I think they should query the initial query -- that's where the game begins.

And if RTE are making a political statement, then good for them. Maybe it shows that someone in there with decision-making powers has decided that the needs of people in the developing world are more important than the needs of some petty game of inter-organisational personal politics.

 

[magicbastarder]

wasn't the rule put in originally to stop ads relating to abortion being broadcast? or is my memory playing tricks?

 

[jane]

wasn't the rule put in originally to stop ads relating to abortion being broadcast? or is my memory playing tricks?

I have no idea, but it's funny you should mention it because I keep thinking about how if they can't broadcast the Trocaire ad, they should also bar those fake family-planning centre ads, the ones that are just covers for scaremongering fundamentalists. Unless they already have, like.

I was under the impression that the rule originally related to spending limits for politicians' campaigns. In other words, that they would not be allowed even to buy ad space that exceeded the air time that their party was originally allowed. But I could be wrong! I can't remember where I read that.

 

[jane]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2022818,00.html

It's estimated that, in India alone, a combination of feticide and infanticide is kiling 930,000 female babies every year. That's more than the total number of deaths in the three years of the Famine. Every year.

AAAANYWAY, to get back to Bellatrix's original post, that article brings up an important point made by Indian feminists, which is that to criminalise women for having sex-selection-based abortions would do nothing like solve the problem.

And the change in the societal dynamic is also interesting, although I'm not sure I would see it as becoming more patriarchal. Just because there are more men doesn't mean that all of those men have access to resources and power. Power is not a numbers game, numbers are a power game. So basically, women are still a commodity: those with the means can afford them, and now that they're scarce, those without the means end up more disenfranchised than they were before. It's a sick way of looking at it, but it's not a big shock or anything that such an imbalance in numbers would be seen in economic terms. Creepy. Sickening.

And the bit about disposing of the bodies? Really, really awful.

 

[Bellatrix]

And the change in the societal dynamic is also interesting, although I'm not sure I would see it as becoming more patriarchal.

The concern is that, since it will be the poorest and least educated who will be left without wives, parts of India will be full of angry, disenfranchised, sex-starved men. Which will be nice. Also, the kidnapping and trafficking of women is already becoming widespread.

I don't think that an outright ban on abortion would solve this problem. There are broader issues that need to be dealt with - the most obvious being the customs surrounding marriage. At the same time, I don't think couples should be told the sex of the fetus, unless, for some reason, it's imperative. It takes a long time to change the attitudes of a society and one million babies are dying every year. I think practical, short-term measures are required here.

 

[Goff]

Part of RTE's brief is to be apolitical.

Not that they ever are. Oh, look! Another Late Late Show in honour of a Fianna Fail politician. Etc.

We don't need them to be Fox, or to have an opinion. They're our National Broadcaster. They get our licence fees. We need them to be neutral. Over-ruling a decision on something that is seen to be divisive is a political act, whether it's right or wrong. They BCI are there for a reason. Advisory, yes. But RTE are flexing their muscles, which, as a fee payer is on my behalf.

First step.

 

[jane]

The concern is that, since it will be the poorest and least educated who will be left without wives, parts of India will be full of angry, disenfranchised, sex-starved men. Which will be nice. Also, the kidnapping and trafficking of women is already becoming widespread.

I don't think that an outright ban on abortion would solve this problem. There are broader issues that need to be dealt with - the most obvious being the customs surrounding marriage. At the same time, I don't think couples should be told the sex of the fetus, unless, for some reason, it's imperative. It takes a long time to change the attitudes of a society and one million babies are dying every year. I think practical, short-term measures are required here.

Oh, I know that's the concern, and that was the point I was trying to make, except that there was this implication that more men=more patriarchal, and just trying to set it into the economic terms in which women are viewed. If women had more autonomy in marriage decisions, it would be a lot harder to traffic in them. Basically, I was trying to make the point that the more there is an imbalance, the more disenfranchised men there will be. What really is tragic is that rather than realise that this is just one example of how treating females better actually benefits a whole society, these things have a tendency to get caught up in the rhetorics of gender politics -- like the BCI/Trocaire thing.

Banning abortion would definitely be the wrong idea -- because clearly, there is at least a tacit tolerance for infanticide, so they'd just wait until the child was born instead. And the thing is, the girl babies are being killed because they are girls, and it's a problem with the perceptions of women in general. But it is such a long-term problem because as we've learned in the West, abstract concepts like societal perceptions of women don't really convince the people who need to be convinced. And so how will people find a practical, short-term solution that also sets the right path for the longer-term issues?

I'm not expecting that we can solve the problem on the internerd, like, I'm just wondering. And it's absolutely awful. Imagine what it must be like for a mother to get to the point where she abandons her child for being a girl. Christ, it must be so insanely traumatic. The fathers, too -- I can't imagine there aren't millions of heartbroken fathers out there, too. And that's before you even consider the effects on the wee ones are lucky enough to survive babyhood.

 

[jane]

Part of RTE's brief is to be apolitical.

Not that they ever are. Oh, look! Another Late Late Show in honour of a Fianna Fail politician. Etc.

We don't need them to be Fox, or to have an opinion. They're our National Broadcaster. They get our licence fees. We need them to be neutral. Over-ruling a decision on something that is seen to be divisive is a political act, whether it's right or wrong. They BCI are there for a reason. Advisory, yes. But RTE are flexing their muscles, which, as a fee payer is on my behalf.

First step.

But how can they be neutral? Whether they drop the ad or run it, that decision is going to be political because the situation itself is political.

I do see what you mean, though, especially in terms of setting new precedents, or dealing with precedents already set. Because it would be very easy to say that it's better to have them running a charity ad than to have more Fianna Fail politicians on the Late Late, when that's just another agenda at work.

I think the issue is a more fundamental one of whether it's possible for any body that deals with media of any kind to really remain neutral. Even the basic statement of 'facts' is done in a particular order and with particular emphases that are at least partly informed by politics. Look at the news since the paedophile ring was revealed in the last few weeks: more and more emphases on sex crimes. And it's not because there's an increase in sex crimes, there's an increased focus on them.

This case is different, not because it is any more political than anything else, but because it was stopped for an implication of politics rather than an overt statement about them.

So since it's obviously not possible to remain neutral (apart from staying away from the really blatant, obvious stuff), what to do then? Especially now that -- maybe -- a precedent has been set for pulling ads that have even implied political agendas? And really, if you want to get down to the level of implied politics, an ad for anything made by anyone is pushing a product that is deeply entrenched in all kinds of politics. But I know that's not the issue here, nor is it what you are suggesting.

I just wonder what you think RTE should have done in order to remain neutral, when pulling it would have been just as political.

 

[Goff]

Ah, but pulling it would have been following the BCI's instructions.

Don't get me wrong: I don't agree with the BCI on this. It's just the RTE thing that annoys me.

Anyway, back to the more important topic of the thread!

 

[Squiggle]

I am still at a loss as to how this ad can be seen as a political ad. I've seen it several times and I don't feel that it singles out any one regime, country or race. They are merely stating a fact and creating awareness.

Then again, Charities are forever being accused of being political. The one I work for has received letters of condemnation from Right Wing so-called christians because we help non-christians without trying to force Christian beliefs down their throats.