Two statues of women dominate the central square of Hopkins, a small town in Belize. One celebrates Martina Vicente, a true matriarch figure (a sign says 85% of the town's population claim her as their ancestress). The other is of Marcella Lewis, poet, musician, writer and patroness of the town but also of the Garifuna community, a proud and distinctive ethnic group now concentrated in Central America. "She lived to love and she loved to live," says the inscription; legend has it that her spiritual force shaped all who met her.
It's not common to find a community whose memories celebrate women quite as explicitly and dominantly as the town of Hopkins. But as I explore people's personal inspiration and motivation, it's striking how often people point to the powerful influence of women, especially mothers but also teachers and other figures.
Set that in contrast to the articles in a recent Economist magazine. The cover picture has two pink booties and the headline, in pink letters, is "Gendercide." Why are 100 million girls missing, the magazine asks.
At issue is one of the most horrific patterns in modern life, the systematic abortion of female fetuses and killing of baby girls. This is a genocide so quiet that it is measured in statistical probabilities (the ratios of births of girls and boys are remarkably similar and steady across place and time so if, say, 120 boys are born for every 100 girls, someone is clearly doing something to make that happen). Gendercide is widespread, and it increases as people gain the technology to know when they expect a daughter. It creates gender imbalances that threaten to destabilize our unstable world still more.
Three forces explain the trend. One is an ancient preference for sons that is common in many societies. In the past, though, people looked to spooky practices to influence their future child's sex. Today, sonograms and other techniques offer a real way to know. And with smaller families, options for that desired son shrink: in China, notably, you have one shot only.
A sordid piece of the story is direct infanticide. We have little grip on the real numbers but many little girls are killed or allowed to die. Author Xinran in Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love describes a horrendous scene where a newborn baby girl is drowned in a chamber pot. Perhaps worse is the brutal statistic of abnormally high mortality of second and third daughters, telling a tale of neglect and abuse.
The passion for boy children is far stronger in some cultures than others, linked both to economics (boys to work the fields and care for parents in old age) and traditions of male dominance. Once the technology is available to discern the sex of a fetus, the speed with which the boy/girl imbalance has shifted has been breathtaking, especially in Asia and the Middle East. There is evidence that it also afflicts some communities in the United States.
The prospect of a generation or more of large societies contending with age cohorts where men far outnumber women is chilling. Rootless young men are notoriously prone to violence and other destabilizing behavior. Common sense suggests that the experience of skewed sex ratios will ultimately reverse the patterns so that the situation comes back into balance. But letting nature take its course, so to speak, is a very risky approach, even though there is some sign that in some countries, Korea especially, more girls are born today than a decade ago.
What really will jolt cultures out of this dangerous mix of tradition and modern technology is celebrating women, in real and meaningful ways. Where women are viewed as weak, inferior, and dependent, they are dispensable and prone to exploitation.
This is where religious leaders and communities can unite and act. They can speak forcefully on gendercide; Swami Agnivesh, leading marches against foeticide in India, sets a great example. Even more, they can celebrate women, not only in traditional roles as nurturers and loving companions but as true heroines, equal participants and leaders. They can celebrate far more the extraordinary work of women in faith communities
If we can truly achieve true equality between men and women, it's possible to imagine a far better world, where the current missing 100 million plus girls would be unimaginable. And more towns would, like Hopkins Belize, savor and celebrate the achievements of women.
