Gendercide and Women’s Advancement

We’ve all by now read a lot about China’s one child policy, its widespread biases favouring boys over girls, and resulting sex-selective abortion and infanticide. I was surprised to learn of an unexpected effect of all this, at least in some urban areas. One effect was that (at least some) families with a single daughter put far more resources into her education than they might otherwise have done, leading to a lot of highly educated and ambitious women. All this education and ambition has made them more independent of men than they might otherwise have been. And the fact that men outnumber women has apparently made women feel that they can “be picky”, demanding men who do not expect subservience of them. It’s worth noting that there are still plenty of horror stories about the way that women and girls are treated– I’ve particularly heard these about rural areas, though I don’t know if that’s representative. Nonetheless, it’s both interesting and nice to hear of a non-oppressive effect of an oppressive policy and oppressive attitudes. (Thanks, Jender-Parents!)