Bini Dahal

Having a single child, that, too, a daughter, my parents are always asked if they never wanted a son to continue the family legacy. My father’s consistent reply is, “She is both my daughter and son, and we are satisfied with it”. Whenever I hear him, I am forced to remember all the Asian girls and women who are the target of the patriarchal society’s craze for a son. The situation that existed a hundred years ago has remained the same. And alas, our inability to change and move on is more horrifying than ever.
Some days ago, very horrifying news took over social media. This news was about the misdeed done by a 43-year-old man in the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. According to police reports, the man had slashed his pregnant wife’s stomach with a sickle. The reason being, he wanted to check the gender of the unborn. Already a father to five daughters in the family, the man allegedly wanted to make sure a son would be born in the family to continue his family legacy. While the wife’s relatives alleged the man for deliberately using the sickle to rip open her stomach, he denied his action being intentional. He told a lie that he had thrown the sickle without having an idea that it would injure her severely. He was arrested by the police. With the stillborn infant dead and his wife in a very critical situation, she was taken to New Delhi for treatment.
It is so evident from the incidents that this man had no remorse whatsoever. He was and is still completely unapologetic of his actions while being strongly blinded with the facade of patriarchal belief.
There are two reasons as to why the people hold such anachronistic view. First, the society is not willing to change itself for a better outlook. Second, it has a chain effect. A society that does not want to change when it has a face-off with strict government rules and regulations searches for alternative ways to do things. In the case of this man too, as Indian law does not allow gender revelation to prevent sex-selective termination, he opted for a heinous way of gender revelation.
Not just this, sons may be considered as the breadwinner for most families but dismissing the prospect or ability of a daughter being a breadwinner while calling them a burden or someone else’s property is just complete ignorance. I would call it more of an inability of most people to adapt to the new change. This can only be changed through the government’s continuous effort to make more people aware and educated. Taking the life of an innocent unborn to fulfil the desire of a son is just worthless. It’s just not India but most Asian countries still strongly prefer a son to a daughter.
For someone, who has brought us to this world and given us life on this earth, we will always be indebted towards our parents. But those parents, who show discrimination against their own children and try to ruin their lives and future, can in no way be a model. We must continue fighting against the patriarchal thinking to boldly tackle such crimes and violence while making our daughters strong, capable and independent.