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I hate the word ‘utilize’.
There is an art form to selecting words. One mustn’t be drab, nor overly verbose. Large words should be used for clarity and precision in terms of expressing one’s intent. They should NOT be used to merely for the sake of making the speaker sound smarter or more official. As my wonderful philosophy professor once lectured, this makes your writing [or speaking] ‘fluffy’. It takes up lots of space, but has little substance. Further, if one is hellbent on using an impressive sounding word, make damn sure it means what you think it means. When people violate these two rules, I think back to that professor and how I ought to correct the culprits in his honour. Guillermo, this post is for you.
The first example of the misuse of words comes straight from the lecture that ultimately inspired this post. ‘Utilize’. This word is the epitome of ‘fluffy’ language. There is not one instance where the word ‘utilize’ adds any meaning that could not be derived from the word ‘use’.
Indeed, the only time ‘utilize’ is used is when the speaker/writer wants to sound smart and gain extra credibility without earning it. Try it out. The next time you hear someone say ‘utilize’, check the context. They are most likely trying to convince their audience of a) their position, b) their intelligence, or c) their import. Further, if you take their sentence and put in ‘use’ instead of ‘utilize’, you will find that not one iota of meaning has been lost.
Let us compare this to another pair of words: ‘end’ and ‘terminate’. Like the set in our example, they are synonyms. However, there is an important difference. Compare the following:
“My job was terminated today.”
“My work day terminated at 4:30 today.”
The word ‘terminate’ has a sense of finality to it that is not present in ‘end’. In our first sentence, ‘terminate’ conveys that the speaker was fired, that their job is no more. It is a valid use of a large word.
The second sentence doesn’t sound right, though, as the speaker is merely speaking of what time they finished their job that day. This conflicts with the extra meaning associated with ‘terminate’. As the message doesn’t contain the extra meaning, it is an incorrect application of the larger word. Read the rest of this entry »
This clip is about the acceptance of same sex couples making out in public spaces. Why is it okay for hetero couples to mash face, but not when of the same sex. Gauge your reactions and how you feel about the situations presented. Examine your feelings and ask where do they come from, and are they based on rationality or just what someone told you was OK and what was NOT OK. Question those assumptions as authority has a nasty habit of being wrong.
The clip ends with a similar situation only this time the same sex couple is female. Do you think the reaction will be the same? If I can find the clip we’ll watch and see, but I can already guess the result. It is much more OK for two women to be making out because women as members of the sex class, happen to be doing sexy things appeals to patriarchal norms in society and thus is far more acceptable then two men (clearly violating patriarchal norms) engaged in the same activity.
So, when you hear people talking about sexism and patriarchy and feminism do not rationalize it away as “some topic that does not apply to you” or “those battles were won years ago.” The struggle for a genuinely decent society is still ongoing and could always use more people who are aware of the problems and their privilege and most importantly how they can make a positive difference.
Thank you for your powerful words and the courage modeled in dismantling the rotten specter of religion. That is all.
Christopher Hitchens 1949 – 2011.
It is funny, but OED sent me Sturgeon’s Law as its word of the day it goes like this –
“Sturgeon’s Law – A humorous aphorism which maintains that most of any body of published material, knowledge, etc., or (more generally) of everything is worthless: based on a statement by Sturgeon (see quot. 1957), usually later cited as ‘90 per cent of everything is crap’”.
Of course, this law handily applies to the deranged brain turd trust that spewed out the idea that having the Lord’s Prayer in Public School was okay. Let me check my timepiece. Oh hey it’s not the middle ages anymore. Why are we polluting young minds with inane religious nonsense in the 21st century?
“The school of 380 students is now hoping for some guidance from the Sturgeon School Board.
“It’s our desire to be an inclusive school and respect the rights of every one,” said Goertzen.
The principal, Goertzen, by making the Prayer a part of the morning announcements is by definition not respecting the rights of everyone. Muslims Atheists and Hindu’s get to quietly suck it up while Christian Dogma is spewed every morning must be in his definition of inclusion.
Public schools are secular institutions.
“The board expects the school to solve the issue on its own.”
I suggest they start their brainstorming session from here – Public schools are secular institutions.
“I haven’t got any problem with it either way,” said chairman Terry Jewell. “If the community wants it that’s fine by me. If they don’t want it’s also fine.”
Your definitive lack of spine is noted Mr.Jewell. I’d hate for you to actually have to take a stand and say that religion has no place in our public schools as that might upset the fundies. Never fear though, the front lines of our educational system are being upheld with vigilance and care. Sorta kinda…
“Under provisions in the British North America Act, now part of the Canadian constitution, public schools in Alberta and Saskatchewan can offer religious education if parents so desire, said Jewell”
I guess hiding behind the BNA act is considered a strong enough defence of pubic education these days. The idea that a school board can even entertain the idea of having religion in public schools in the 21st century in Canada leaves me gobsmacked.
Teaching children the mendacious foolishness of *any* religion is a huge disservice to them. Saddling yet another generation with erroneous perceptions of how the world works is a monumental disservice to them and society.
It should not be happening – ceiling cat is displeased.
This is all repost folks. The article from alter.net is long, but clearly written and provides a great deal of context as to what OWS is and what it needs to do to continue its success. Do you want to actually understand some of what OWS? is about? Make the time and read this article. Take it away Dr.Chomsky.
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It’s a little hard to give a Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at an Occupy meeting. There are mixed feelings that go along with it. First of all, regret that Howard is not here to take part and invigorate it in his particular way, something that would have been the dream of his life, and secondly, excitement that the dream is actually being fulfilled. It’s a dream for which he laid a lot of the groundwork. It would have been the fulfillment of a dream for him to be here with you.
The Occupy movement really is an exciting development. In fact, it’s spectacular. It’s unprecedented; there’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations that are being established at these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead — because victories don’t come quickly– this could turn out to be a very significant moment in American history.
The fact that the demonstrations are unprecedented is quite appropriate. It is an unprecedented era — not just this moment — but actually since the 1970s. The 1970s began a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society with ups and downs. But the general progress was toward wealth and industrialization and development — even in dark and hope — there was a pretty constant expectation that it’s going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.
I’m just old enough to remember the Great Depression. After the first few years, by the mid-1930s, although the situation was objectively much harsher than it is today, the spirit was quite different. There was a sense that we’re going to get out of it, even among unemployed people. It’ll get better. There was a militant labor movement organizing, CIO was organizing. It was getting to the point of sit-down strikes, which are very frightening to the business world. You could see it in the business press at the time. A sit-down strike was just a step before taking over the factory and running it yourself. Also, the New Deal legislations were beginning to come under popular pressure. There was just a sense that somehow we’re going to get out of it.
It’s quite different now. Now there’s kind of a pervasive sense of hopeless, or, I think, despair. I think it’s quite new in American history and it has an objective basis. In the 1930s unemployed “working people” could anticipate realistically that the jobs are going to come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today — and the unemployment level in manufacturing today is approximately like the Depression — if current tendencies persist, then those jobs aren’t going to come back. The change took place in the ’70s. There are a lot of reasons for it. One of the underlying reasons, discussed mainly by economic historian Robert Bernard, who has done a lot of work on it, is a falling rate of profit. That, with other factors, led to major changes in the economy — a reversal of the 700 years of progress towards industrialization and development. We turned to a process of deindustrialization and de-development. Of course, manufacturing production continued, but overseas (it’s very profitable, but no good for the workforce). Along with that came a significant shift of the economy from productive enterprise, producing things people need, to financial manipulation. Financialization of the economy really took off at that time.
Before the ’70s, banks were banks. They did what banks are supposed to do in a capitalist economy: take unused funds, like, say, your bank account, and transfer them to some potentially useful purpose, like buying a home or sending your kid to college. There were no financial crises. It was a period of enormous growth; the largest period of growth in American history, or maybe in economic history. It was sustained growth in the ’50s and ’60s and it was egalitarian. So the lowest percentile did as well as the highest percentile. A lot of people moved into reasonable lifestyles — what’s called here “middle class” (working class is what it’s called in other countries).
It was real. The ’60s accelerated it. The activism of the ’60s, after a pretty dismal decade, really civilized the country in lots of ways that are permanent. They’re not changing. The ’70s came along and suddenly there’s sharp change to industrialization and the offshoring of production. The shifting to financial institutions, which grew enormously. Also in the ’50s and ’60s there was the development of what became several decades later the high-tech economy. Computers, Internet, the IT revolution was mostly developed in the ’50 and the ’60s, and substantially in the state sector. It took a couple of decades before it took off, but it was developed then.
The 1970s set off a kind of a vicious cycle that led to a concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector, which doesn’t benefit the economy. Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power, which, in turn, arrives to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle. The physical policies such as tax changes, rules of corporate governance, deregulation were essentially bipartisan. Alongside of this began a very sharp rise in the costs of elections, which drives the political parties even deeper than before into the pockets of the corporate sector.
A couple years later started a different process. The parties dissolved, essentially. It used to be if you were a person in Congress and hoped for a position of committee chair or a position of responsibility, you got it mainly through seniority and service. Within a couple of years, you started to have to put money into the party coffers in order to get ahead. That just drove the whole system even deeper into the pockets of the corporate sector and increasingly the financial sector–a tremendous concentration of wealth, mainly in the literally top 1/10th of 1 percent of the population.
Meanwhile, for the general population it began an open period of pretty much stagnation, or decline for the majority. People got by through pretty artificial means — like borrowing, so a lot of debt. Longer working hours for many. There was a period of stagnation and a higher concentration of wealth. The political system began to dissolve. There’s always been a gap between public policy and the public will, but it just grew kind of astronomically. You can see it right now, in fact.
Take a look at what’s happening right now. The big topic in Washington that everyone concentrates on is the deficit. For the public, correctly, the deficit is not much of an issue. The issue is joblessness, not a deficit. Now there’s a deficit commission but no joblessness commission. As far as the deficit is concerned, if you want to pay attention to it, the public has opinions. Take a look at the polls and the public overwhelmingly supports higher taxes on the wealthy, which have declined sharply during this stagnation period, this period of decline. The public wants higher taxes on the wealthy and to preserve the limited social benefits. The outcome of the deficit commission is probably going to be the opposite. Either they’ll reach an agreement, which will be the opposite of what the public wants, or else it will go into kind of an automatic procedure which is going to have those effects. Actually that’s something that’s going to happen very quickly. The deficit commission is going to come up with its decision in a couple of weeks. The Occupy movements could provide a mass base for trying to avert what amounts to a dagger in the heart of the country, and having negative effects.
Without going on with details, what’s being played out for the last 30 years is actually a kind of a nightmare that was anticipated by the classical economists. If you take an Adam Smith, and bother to read Wealth of Nations, you see that he considered the possibility that the merchants and manufacturers in England might decide to do their business abroad, invest abroad and import from abroad. He said they would profit but England would be harmed. He went on to say that the merchants and manufacturers would prefer to operate in their own country, what’s sometimes called a “home bias.” So, as if by an invisible hand, England would be saved the ravage of what’s called “neoliberal globalization.”
That’s a pretty hard passage to miss. In his classic Wealth of Nations, that’s the only occurrence of the phrase “invisible hand.” Maybe England would be saved from neoliberal globalization by an invisible hand. The other great classical economist David Ricardo recognized the same thing and hoped it wouldn’t happen. Kind of a sentimental hope. It didn’t happen for a long time, but it’s happening now. Over the last 30 years that’s exactly what’s underway. For the general population — the 99 percent in the imagery of the Occupy movement –it’s really harsh and it could get worse. This could be a period of irreversible decline. For the 1 percent, or furthermore 1/10th of 1 percent, it’s just fine. They’re at the top, richer and more powerful than ever in controlling the political system and disregarding the public, and if it can continue, then sure why not? This is just what Smith and Ricardo warned about.
I promised myself I would not do this again, but it happened anyways *sigh*. I went back to Usneakydevilu’s blog and perused the articles there. Bad move, I’m guessing my SIWOTI gnome needs feeding and wanted the *full* buffet style treatment. I am aware of the nuclear grade delusion running front and centre there, but the post on “Intellectual Rape; Liberal Teachers Invade the South to “Evolve” Students Ideology” actually made me pause and contemplate what the sound of infinite *head-desking* might sound like; I could not resist arguments this ridiculous – they need to be fisked and shared with the world.
So gentle readers, I once again unsheathe the red pen of justice and prepare to lay bare the fatuous murmurings of the delusional and hopefully satiate that damn SIWOTI gnome for awhile. First a line by line analysis and then a summary at the end. I realize we are waaaaay into TL;DR territory, but let me assure you hilarity ensues through the entire piece.
“Intellectual Rape; Liberal Teachers Invade the South to “Evolve” Students Ideology”
(Lets start with the title – Intellectual rape? Rape is a violent non consensual act . So we are to believe that students somehow being violently taught something against their will a la “A Clockwork Orange“. Or more likely, it is just tasteless hyperbole setting the stage for a whinge filled rant on the theme of religious scare mongering and projection. Anyhow, please note the conservative anti-intellectual use of the dog-whistle “evolve” because it is well known that Evolutionary Theory (aka rational scientific knowledge) is just plain wrong.)
EXTRA! EXTRA! The South has been invaded.
But unlike The Civil War, this invasion is to enslave rather than to free. [my link]
(It is fascinating to watch the inversion of values take place. Watch as rational discourse, inquisitiveness and critical thinking, the hallmarks of education are portrayed as evil evil evil bad things!)
Today, if you spend any amount of time on any high school or college campus in the South, you will find a rapidly growing number of ”teachers” from northern and western U.S. states. These teachers are proud to say that they are from cities like New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and a slew of other non southern cities. You could say these teachers are going where the teaching jobs are and that could be true, but I’ve found that it’s not that cut and dry. (Anecdata is at its best, but great for setting the stage for the fetid pile of BS that is about to come)
Liberal teachers are gathering up their intellectual arms and are headed to the South to fight Christian-Conservative values and beliefs, using sneaky guerilla warfare tactics. (What? Those sneaky liberals hiding in the bushes and coming out to raid the good decent folk of the south, how dare they? – I think USD is referring to the idea that secular education, as opposed to religious education is based on reality as opposed to magic and that choosing rationality over mythology is a bad thing.)
There is an assertive effort to invade the South and help evolve the “slow and backward thinking” of the people of the South. (Shoddy sentence construction aside – Education tends to dispel irrational belief, and that is *good* thing.)
To inspire evolution liberals know the best way to do so is to insert liberal thought into young inexperienced minds. (Oh ho!, USD is onto the Evil Liberal Overmind – watch out parents, rationality might slip into your educational system causing people to question their magical beliefs.)
Southern states tend to be more conservative, more religious, while less hedonistic and open to gay lifestyle, abortion and redistribution of wealth (aka less advanced and civilized). The South gets in the way of more liberal policy and liberal leadership. In an attempt to change voting practices of Southerners, Progressive-Liberal teachers from the North and West flock to the South to do their ”missionary work” (citation needed), they see Southerners as ignorant, poor fools (USD missed ‘religious’ in his list of adjectives, as religious usually goes hand in hand with said adjectives) in need of purging out of old values and beliefs.
I’ve listened to many liberal teachers and they all teach from the same blueprint, they all say they welcome different opinions and want to inspire thought. (Anecdata again, along with generalizing…but hey what better tools to describe “the enemy”. Newsflash – dissent, differing opinions, debate – are hallmarks of good education practice as they encourage critical thinking and analysis.) But these teachers are really telling students, what you have heard and have been taught all your life is wrong. (Actually, I bet those teachers are encouraging students to think for themselves and look for evidence to base their beliefs and opinions on. Belief in christian dogma has no rational basis; refuting the religious brainwashing and dogmatic instructions students have been programmed with *should* be a natural consequence of education.)
What these liberal teachers are doing fits the profile of a statutory rapist where an older more superior intellectual, hoodwink an immature-feeble-minded youth into practicing ones desired action, intellectually raping young minds, throwing their beliefs on top of them. (Ignorance is strength! – How dare you! Encourage my child to think about the world in rational way? Preposterous! I’ve spent so many years indoctrinating him with the magic facts from my magic book and you want to undue all of my brainwashing? – False indignation aside, the contents of this paragraph are repugnant. Educating children to think critically cannot be considered “statutory rape” of the mind. Questioning, debating, arguing are all facets of intellectual growth and development and thus reside in the core of what teaching is about. The entire idea behind this post seems to be based on the fear that if children become intellectually equipped to make a rational evaluation of religion they *might* reject their indoctrination and begin to think for themselves. A scary thought indeed.)
Sneaky Code terms being used to molest young minds are:
- Question authority, Question what you are being told (But when you question their liberal ideas, they don’t call on you anymore) ( Oh! *clutches pearls* Shades of the persecuted majority! – Which ‘liberal ideas’ are we talking about? Did you make your arguments logically or did they start with such poppycock as “the bible says…” or ” jesus teaches…” Making arguments based on fictional sources and fairy tales shouldn’t earn you any special place in an educational environment.)
- Think outside your norms (Your views are obsolete, get new better values and beliefs) (What? Question dogmatic belief? Unthinkable. But, really, basing your world view on the ramblings of semi-literate bronze age shepherds is kinda backwards, as we are in the 21st century and have progressed and amassed knowledge far surpassing that of our ancestors.)
- Ask Why! Why do you believe what you believe? (The never-ending “Why”. Why is what a Liberal teacher tells you.) (“Why” is one of the most important questions out there. The question “why” begets curiosity, clarity and critical thinking.)
- Acceptance. “I wanted to make my classroom a place of acceptance, of exploring new ideas and identities”. (But no acceptance of Christian conservative thought but acceptance of GLBTQI= GayLesbian…) (Persecuted majority twice in the same set of bullet points – defensive much? If the views of christian conservative thought (oxymornic statement at best) deserve merit then they should be able to stand on their own. Criticism should be welcomed as the arguments are sound…the problem is that many of tenets are not and thus cannot be defended rationally – cue the reliance on dogmatic belief and doctrine rather than rational,critical analysis.)
I stumbled across a blog of an Anarchist teacher and thought that’s a oxymoron if ever I seen one. How can you not want any rules or human regulations but you’re a teacher in a system of rules and regulations. (This is actually an interesting question, but again it is clouded by closed binary thinking. Anarchism, like most ideologies, is on a spectrum and is not easily categorized. Clearly, having read the teachers post she is doing her best to integrate her values into the system proscribed by the school. Creating a safe environment to explore issues and ideas is goal all teachers share (or at least they should). We should get back to the fear and paranoia though… )
These Northern and Western liberal teachers are invading the South with great passion. They are on a mission to change people’s values and beliefs to fit their progressive agenda. (Citation needed – But hey, when you are a defender of the faith, who needs citations!)
Liberal teachers are intellectually raping our young students, “our kids”, we need to know this is going on and challenge these sneaky bastards on every front. (Well, way to stick to your thesis, despite it being catastrophically wrong. I mentioned projection at the beginning of my editorial, we’ll be getting to that soon enough. Teaching children to be curious and to develop critical thinking skills is not “intellectual rape“, it is teaching children how to mature intellectually and begin the process of becoming a rational thinker.)
There’s nothing wrong with knowing God, there’s nothing wrong with having conservative values, and just because it’s “change” doesn’t make it good change. (Indeed, there is nothing wrong with “knowing god”, but the key to that statement would be this: you would have to come to that decision on your own and not predicate your decision on the bullshite religious dogma you were force fed as child. Seems reasonable, no?)
Patriarchy offers so many yummy selections of shit sandwich for women. Rape culture, sexism, inequality are hallmarks of the patriarchal construction of our society. The implicit nature of Western patriarchal norms have nothing on what is going on in cultures where said norms are firmly entrenched in the bedrock of society. Modern medical technology coupled with ‘traditional’ societies views on women make female lives even more tenuous.
“Dr Neelam Singh is on the front line of India’s battle to save its girls.
Modern medical technology – specifically ultrasounds for determining the baby’s sex – coupled with ancient cultural values which give preference to boys, mean that hundreds of thousands of girls are never being born.
There were only 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six in India, according to the 2011 census, compared with 927 for every 1,000 boys in the 2001 census. Today’s ratio is the highest imbalance since the country won independence in 1947.
“I feel the demand [for abortions] every day,” Singh told Al Jazeera. “Parents say it’s important to have a son in the family. They want to keep their family name. I see this as the most heinous kind of discrimination towards a girl child.”
Outdated customs coupled with new technology = death for women.
“In India, there is a confluence of factors leading to passive infanticide, active infanticide or sex selective abortion,” Valerie Hudson, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University who studies birth rates, told Al Jazeera.
“Probably the most important is the tradition of dowry [payment to a prospective husband]. Having to marry a girl off may be the equivalent of several years of income for a family. A daughter is often seen as a thief who will rob necessary resources.”
Restrictive property rules, where inheritance is passed from father to son rather than to daughters, male dominated funeral rights and parental hopes that male breadwinners will support them through old age also play a part in skewing demographics, Hudson said.
The world’s largest democracy still fares better than China, where the ratio is 121 men per 100 women. Globally, 163 million girls have gone “missing” from the world’s population due to sex selective abortions in the last thirty years, according to the calculations of Mara Hvistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection.
By 2020, an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of men in some regions of northwest India will lack female counterparts. “In Punjab, there are entire villages with no girls under [age] five,” said Rohini Prabha Pande, an independent demographer who works on gender issues in India. “There are some districts with 700 girls per 1,000 boys,” she told Al Jazeera.”
It is an ugly cycle as high sex ratio’s favour a more traditional society which in turn promotes less female children which raises the sex ratio. A destructive positive feedback patriarchal loop in action.
“These massive social imbalances could spark a host of social problems.
“When 15 per cent of young adult males in your population will never become head of household or heirs you will alienate these men in ways that cannot be fixed,” Hudson said. Poor men will be the biggest losers in this equation.
“The historical record shows there can be distinct negative impacts on levels of violent crime, riots and rebellion against the state,” when large groups of single young men are alienated and lack family commitments, according to Hudson.
The lack of women is being felt by bachelors, policy makers and women’s rights activists across Asia. By 2020, China could be home to 40 million bachelors who won’t be able to find mates.
“North Korea’s largest export is women across their northern border with China,” Hudson said, noting that the ruling 
communist party is particularly worried about prospects for unrest from angry, unmarried men.”
Nothing like hoards of frustrated young men roaming about to stabilize your society.
“After India’s 1991 census, a prolonged campaign by women’s rights activists over the skewed child sex ratio led to the enactment of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1994.
“Technology allowing families to detect the sex of a foetus at an early stage and plan for an abortion has been banned,” said Mohammed Asif, director of programme implementation with Plan India, an NGO which lobbies to save baby girls.
“The government’s law is stringent, but people have been trying to work around it, going to far away clinics and giving fake addresses. Loopholes have been exploited and a key strategy would be to take action against illegal ultra sound clinics,” Asif told Al Jazeera.
Other researchers don’t think legal changes are the best way to improve the situation. If cultural values discourage against having girls, families can find other ways of getting rid of them without advanced screening techniques.
“Ultra sound technology is just the latest wave to select a son preference,” Pande said. “In rural Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, you see a fairly balanced sex ratio at birth. But when you look at what is happening between birth and age six, they resort to traditional means of neglecting girl children. They are less likely to be immunised, less likely to be taken to a health centre and more likely to be chronically malnourished.”
When women lack autonomy and control of their bodies this sort of discriminate killing can happen as the norms of society trump their reproductive choices.
“Contrary to popular belief, education, status and upward mobility can actually make the problem worse.
“You have a much greater chance of survival as a girl baby if born to a poor family, rather than a rich family,” Hudson said. “Richer families have more assets which could be put in jeopardy by girls due to dowry payments,” she said, adding that wealthy groups worry about having their family name tarnished if their daughter marries from a lower class.
While national trends are cause for concern, the situation is improving in some areas. “Tamil Nadu is one of the few states where we have seen an improvement,” said Sharada Srinivasan, a professor of gender studies at York University in Canada.
In addition to counselling, and the creation of self-help groups for women, the southern state is using the carrot and the stick approach. “The government has created a massive cash transfer programme” to entice parents to keep baby girls, Srinivasan told Al Jazeera. Parents who commit infanticide are increasingly being prosecuted for homicide, she said.
Tamil Nadu also hosts some of India’s new outsourcing and information technology and these post-industrial jobs could improve women’s rights. “Before, women’s work was either at home or on the farm,” Plan India’s Asif said. “With globalisation, girls are now picking up jobs in banking, manufacturing and hi-tech. This is creating a lot of buzz in the family to start considering girls.”
While cash incentives, laws against gender selective ultrasounds, harsh punishments and economic changes all play a role, changing deeply ingrained social values is arguably the most important issue, and the most difficult.
Some communities in Punjab and elsewhere are taking collective pledges not to kill or abort girls, considering the practice a source of shame and an example of backwardness. This is where government policy ends and grassroots action begins.
“There is no way you can tax patriarchy,” Srinivasan said. “Public action has a role to play in changing social norms. History is full of examples of this.”
There are so many factors involved in the commodification of women. The dowry aspect, the class aspect, the inheritance aspect; all contribute toward the strengthening of the patriarchy and the continued abuse of women.
On a similar note, I’ve been down a similar road when discussion abortion with various anti-choice nutters over the years. This seems to be one of their examples they point to when they need example of how “evil” abortion is and all the human life lost. The skewed abortion rates in places like India and China are precisely that way because of the patriarchal rules that make women less than human. Consider that the quest for a male heir to carry on the family name and inheritance trumps any sort of choice/anti-choice discussion because it is not an issue: a male heir is required, end of discussion.
We do not hear about the oppressive nature of the society that perpetuates the sex selected abortions, oh no, it is usually just “They’re killing baaaaaaabies….” with no regard for the normative patriarchal precursors that set the stage for such a sad state of affairs.
(*update* – For a further breakdown on how the anti-choice gambit works, and how absurdly farcical it is, go to The Words on What.)
The only solution, treat women as fully autonomous human beings.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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