William Saletan: A study published last week in the British Medical Journal, based on a survey of nearly 5 million Chinese children and teenagers, bares the gruesome numbers. Worldwide, the number of boys born per 100 girls ranges from 103 to 107. (The numbers later equalize due to higher male mortality.) Among Chinese children born from 1985 to 1989, the number of boys per 100 girls was 108, close to normal. But among those born from 2000 to 2004, the number rose to 124. The authors conclude that as of 2005, "males under the age of 20 exceeded females by more than 32 million."
32 MILLION young men without access to women, and no hope of every gaining such access (except maybe through pillaging neighbors)?! God help us!
Apparently the Chinese are learning this the hard way. Saletan continues:
Without enough girls, the boys become unruly. So the government, following the same collective logic that inspired the one-child policy, has become the world's biggest promoter of sexual equality.
Part of me wishes this turnaround were being driven by a better motive. But perhaps we should be especially relieved that pure self-interest is behind it. If the devaluation of women, and the expression of that devaluation through sex-selective abortion, becomes a broadly understood threat to regimes worldwide, women won't need to persuade men to value and treat girls more fairly. The population numbers will do the talking.
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