Happened to catch the seasonal “Woman’s Hour” programme this morning! (I’m in touch with my feminine side!)
Was intrigued to hear lavish praise being bestowed on China’s euphemistic “One Child” policy to the murmured approval of all. The sanitisation of this savage Chinese practise was complete with the consensus being it helped Chinese girls. You couldn’t make it up.
CHINESE ENLIGHTENMENT
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Perhaps the ladies on Womans Hour should have read this before indulging in their eugenic daydreams:
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Chinese-demographic-crisis
I believe nearly 40% of the audience for Woman’s Hour is male. I heard the trailer for that item but didn’t bother to listen to the programme. Have always thought that the one-child policy is a disaster with the most ghastly consequences including the killing of girl babies and, a generation later, masses of young men with no one to marry.
Add to that the consequences of natural disasters where the loss of one school filled with children means the extinction of whole families.
Glad to see you too have a feminine side, David. My wife often mentions this to me – before summarily despatching me to the supermarket to do her shopping!
What, she mentions David Vance’s feminine side? How on earth would she know? I’d be doing some urgent investigation by now, if I were you !!
At Chinese New Year up to 200 million migrant workers try to travel back to be with their families, as the family has almost religious significance in their culture. But I was told that a big dilemma now is for a young married couple – do they go to the husband’s family or the wife’s. Often they go their separate ways, I was told. But even if that happens – where does their one child go ?
To hear the BBC one would think that the one-child policy was something the Chinese people chose for themselves.
The BBC also failed to point out that with the surfeit of young men, kidnapping of young women for brides is widespread.
I can’t wait for the BBC to do the inevitable report in a few years about the massive civic unrest due to 15% of men in rural areas unable to find a wife. No more farmland, no more ability to earn a living in the countryside, elderly parents to look after, this will all end in tears. One child per family is one thing, but the deliberate prevention of girls being born is quite another.
“There are problems there, long term, aren’t there,” asks Jane.
“Yes,” and, gosh, something will have to be done. Nobody has any idea what to do, short of literally decimating the male population. But as long as Women’s Hour is on the case, we’ll at least be able to watch the whole thing collapse from the Ivory Tower.
“You couldn’t make it up ?” DV
Well apparently after Wimmins Hour on the BBC and what’s de rigueur in China, after the first one, you probably can’t – or at least shouldn’t !
What will all the females (12 and over) in the likes of Dewsbury and Newport make of this vicious attack on their benefits by the State Broadcaster ?
Maybe the pillocks at W.H might do the world a favour and instead of promoting population control and backing an Illiberal and self defeating law that defies human nature ! and instead highlight the dowry system and certain other religious beliefs that are causing untold problems for women and their daughters the world over
Marriage Dowry As Major Cause Of Poverty In Bangladesh
ScienceDaily (Oct. 31, 2008) — More than 35 million people in Bangladesh, around a quarter of its population, face acute poverty and hunger. Dowry payments of more than 200 times the daily wage and costly medical expenses are major causes of this chronic poverty says research from the University of Bath.
Dr Peter Davis, of the Centre for Development Studies based in the University’s Department of Economics & International Development, has been investigating the issues forcing families into poverty as part of a long-term study in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), and Data Analysis and Technical Assistance Ltd., Dhaka (DATA).
The research found that those households with lower levels of education, that owned less land, had fewer assets and had many young children and elderly relatives, faced the most difficulty in escaping poverty.
The custom of paying a dowry to the future husband’s family when a daughter is married is illegal in Bangladesh, but is still practised by most families living in rural areas. Payment is normally upwards from 20,000 Taka (around £190 or $313 U.S.) and since typical earnings are only 100 Taka (94 pence) per day, this can be a major contributor to poverty for many families with daughters.
This is not a problem that can be laid at the door of the ‘rich’ West but inherent in in (in this case, Muslim culture)
There are numerous cases in the local press of British resident Bangladeshis collecting dowry as ‘eligible’ and then just never turning up or collecting the the blushing bride but banking the money.
A good topic for the sisters on Womans Hour. Gritty and real.
There is a very close statistical relationship between being very poor and having many children. I have no idea which is cause and which effect. Or indeed where in the UK Benefit Sytem the incentives lie, or indeed as the UK attracts cultures where five or six children is the norm (Clue: Africa)
When I had occasion professionally to look into the use of NHS services by social deprivation decile, the only figures I found of huge statistical correlation was the use of NHS maternity facilities by the bottom decile of social deprivation in England.
Go figure, as they say.
Listening to Woman’s Hour? – you deserve a medal. They are on another planet, I gave it up decades ago.
This is the same Woman’s Hour that lionised the Tamil Tigers as brave feminist revolutionary types – completely ignoring the use of teenage girls as human bombs.
I’d expect Woman’s Hour to ask why China doesn’t give women the vote. But as it doesn’t give men the vote either perhaps all is OK in BBC land on this point. Women do have equality.
Actually the logic behind ‘Feminists’ supporting China’s ‘One Child’ policy is quite clear. Women are forced into house keeping/child producing roles by the Male Hegemony. If women only produced one child and preferably none, they would take their natural leadership places in society. This has not happened in China and only marginally in the West but like all good, basing their theories on Marx philosophers they don’t let real-world fact get in the way of theory.
In addition, good Lefties don’t criticise China, the last, greatest Socialist state, since Russia laid down the burden.
If you are saying that all good feminists base their theories on Marx, that’s not true. Only Marxist feminism does or did. Although Marx sent out ripples of influence in all directions, Marxism was about class and the socialist revolution and Marxism and radical feminism were often opposed. Feminism owed more to Enlightenment and subsequent liberal philosophers, individual thinkers and activists and indeed the ferment of ideas and argument generated by the French revolution.
There is more than one stream of feminism and you don’t actually have to have read Marx to follow a philosophy inspired by him.
How many at the BBC have actually read Marx?
There is more than one stream of feminism
That’s what I’m saying. Marxist feminism is just one. Radical feminism did not follow Marx or a Marxist philosophy.
Their leading on-air talent are all well-versed in Marx. Andrew Marr, Stephanie Flanders, Maitlis, Peston, the list goes on.
That’s hilarious… The fact is that China are about to reap the pain of their last 40 years of one child policy, as the huge ageing population will now soon need looking after by a small population.