Cultured Views

Sorry girls but apparently we are the ‘wrong sex’

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Having grown up and lived in the successful example of multi-culturalism that Australia is I have a very well developed and long instilled tolerance for people from the different cultures that I came into contact with through my friends at school and through every day work. Other cultures are stimulating, interesting, sometimes a bit strange but always help to contribute a diverse and colourful aspect to life.

In Australia the schools hold multi-cultural days where the kids spend a day highlighting a feature of their cultural heritage; they get to eat food from Vietnam, learn folk songs from Italy and Greece, make Japanese sushi, see Chinese Dragons dance, learn about Islam…its great.

We may not understand what some cultures are all about but this is mainly due to ignorance on our part; getting together with people of other nationalities, socialising, working with them is all it takes to get to know them and learn about what makes them who they are.  Of course there are people too ignorant to accept this and you have to feel sorry for them - I certainly do - but what happens when society is confronted with aspects of a certain culture that are both cruel and totally incomprehensible ? is it fair to say that in such cases the limits of tolerance and understanding are allowed to be pushed to the limit ?

A couple, British citizens but Indian by birth, recently abandoned their twin baby girls in a hospital in England.  What makes this story so sad, and also infuriating in my opinion, are the finer details.  This husband and wife, he is 72 and she is 59, travelled to India to receive fertility treatment which resulted in her falling pregnant with twins. They returned to the UK for the birth which happened two weeks ago and when the babies were delivered and found to be both female, they abandonded them. Why ? because they are ‘the wrong sex’.

They wanted boys. Because to these and their culture, boys are valuable and girls are a bloody nuisance. Sons can earn money and support parents; daughters cost money to get rid of later on.

Now, despite the fact that this couple should have been considered too old to be allowed IVF in the first place, they were still able to avail themselves of this remarkable modern technology. Technology in which women have played a major role in its research, development and implementation. In which ‘the wrong sex’ have played the role which helped make it all possible for selfish individuals as this couple.

They left the babies at the hospital who are now in care. They do not want them. While I feel pity for them in some way, I mostly feel anger at this aspect of Asian culture because this attitude, that girls are the wrong sex, has no place at all in their own culture let alone in British society. It is outdated, cruel in the extreme, totally unnecessary and should meet with more condemnation than it gets.

Naturally there is moral outrage both in the British media and general public right now, and so there should be. In India these little girls would probably have been killed, if not now then most certainly by their future husband and in-laws who place the value of dowry above the value of a female human being.

Of course we will all be asked to ‘understand’ where this couple are coming from with regards to what they have done and how they think but that request will fall on deaf ears.  This couple will most certainly object to the public anger directed at them, and if they do, maybe this man should pack up his wife and her shrivelled up ovaries and return to where they will be applauded for keeping their abhorrant tradition alive.

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