This weekend in Cochin I bought even more books on India (I know what you must think: when am I going to read all of this? The answer is: someday, someday). One of them is a book on women in India by an American journalist called May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons. Even though it is a bit old (1990) and not terribly academic it is a very interesting read (and it helps me become conscious of many of my prejudices and judgments when I read them from someone else).
One of the chapters is on female infanticide and sex-selective abortion. The author interviews couples who have done these practices in a rural district in Tamil Nadu and in Bombay. Some of the families were very poor and decided to kill their newborn daughter because she was the second or third girl and would not be able to afford her dowry and she would lead a miserable life, so better to spare her. In most cases they would poison her with a local plant. In Bombay, people of a higher socioeconomic level would get a test to know the sex of the baby, and in many cases would have an abortion if it was a girl. The reason why the rural women would not get abortions is not that they could not get one, but that it would require them to be on leave from work for a month, and they cannot afford losing that income.
As shocking as these practices are, they're not really that uncommon. They also happen in China and many other countries where girls are seen as a liability, not as an asset. In India it actually makes economic sense not to invest in girls, since they will leave their parents house to live with their in-laws. She will only take up resources and her parents will have to pay to get her to marry. In other cultures, even if women are seen as second to men, daughters take care of their parents in old age so it makes sense to have them around; to the extreme that in Spain (and thus in Mexico) the youngest daughter was not supposed to marry and would stay home to take care of her parents (becoming el báculo de la vejez)*.
What really impressed me is that the stories of these women are from 1985 or 1990, not from a century ago. If I had been born in any other country or situation, I might not be here writing this. As the fourth girl in my family I would have been considered a terrible curse. My mother would have been looked down on for her incapacity to have boys. If my parents had chosen to keep me, they might have become indebted their whole lives to pay for my dowry, and even then I’d have probably married with difficulties and would have lived as a quasi slave with the risk of my in-laws torturing me (throwing acid or burning me) because I did not bring enough money into the marriage. Dire prospects on all counts.
So even if women face many problems in Mexico, and machismo is still rampant; I do not believe even girls in the poorest households face these dangers. In my case (as exceptional as it might be), my family welcomed me when I was born and were joyous at the event even if my parents would have probably liked a boy after three girls (they did get 2 after me). I was well-fed and educated, raised to believe in myself, free to work, free to marry who I choose, and around long enough to be in India comparing my situation to others who were not so lucky.
*as is portrayed in Como agua para chocolate by Laura Esquivel
jajajajajajajajajajaja me reí a carcajadas con la entrada
ResponderEliminarDefinitivamente yo creo que tu no la hubieras hecho Ne, igual y ni yo eh?
En el mejor de los casos nos hubiera tocado mal casarnos casi regaladas con el vecino.. jajajaja que suerte tenemos!!!
Oye quien cuida a los papas en India? cuando son viejitos
oye y las historias tipo maria mercedes se dan o con el sistema de castas es imposible casarse fuera de su casta? porque esa era otra opcion para nosotros jajja.. claro... en caso de que huberamos nacido.. estoy intentando ver que hubieramos hecho,... jajaja
Se me hace interesante una cosa: dices que hace sentido economico no invertir en las niñas, porque se van a ir. Cual es el sentido economico de que ademas de que van a ir a trabajar a la casa de los suegros, tengan que llevar dote? En pueblos de Africa es al reves, la dote la paga el marido a los padres de la novia, por lo mismo de que se la va a llevar a formar parte de su familia y "pierden una fuente de trabajo"... Entonces me pregunto si al final se le puede encontrar sentido economico a todo, y a costumbres contrarias... Y creo que es todo mucho mas cultural que con sentido. Por que ver a la mujer (a la nuera) como carga? No entiendo.
ResponderEliminarte mando un abrazote y que bueno que si la hicimos ;-) En serio que si es increible lo privilegiadas que somos respecto de las mujeres de todo el mundo y de otros tiempos...
La dote surgió como un mecanismo de protección a la novia en el caso de que algo pasará (muerte del esposo, por ejemplo). Era una especie de seguro para la hija que le compraban los papás ante una situación donde las mujeres no tenían muchas opciones de tener ingresos laborales.
ResponderEliminarA pesar de que hoy ya no cumpla esa función (aunque no sé que pasa en el caso de divorcio, si la devuelven o no), el efecto de esa práctica cultural en la educación y cuidado de las niñas si puede entenderse a través de una lógica económica clara.
Creo que las distintas tradiciones, a pesar de ser contrarias, pueden entenderse a partir de una análisis económico. Eso no quiere decir que sea lo único que hay. Si por alguna razón había pocos hombres o pocas oportunidades para las mujeres de valerse por sí mismas en el caso de quedar solas, la dote tipo India tiene sentido. Lo que no tiene sentido económico es que a partir de esa situación inicial se construya un sistema que puede tener efecto de opresión hacia la novia, a pesar de que va a trabajar en casa del marido. A lo mejor la veían como una boca más que alimentar. O en muchos casos su trabajo no es tan valioso como el de un hombre. Y aquí entra el tema de que el trabajo doméstico no se considera trabajo porque no está remunerado. Esas son cuestiones culturales, que en efecto, no tienen una lógica puramente económica.
En el caso contrario, si no hay mujeres, entonces vale la pena pagar por ellas (las novias chinas por correspondencia, por ejemplo).
En el caso de la India, la dote se convirtió en algo abusivo en la segunda mitad del siglo XX; de hecho la práctica está prohibida por la constitución desde 1961 ante el alto número de torturas a la novia que había. Pero se siguen dando casos...