The other day, I was reading this article about how Japan's Princess Aiko has been missing school because of bullying by some boys at her elementary school. While this news is disturbing in itself, what caught my attention was the reference the article made to Aiko's mother, Princess Masako. Anybody remember this woman? Her story still makes me emotional.
When I was a little girl, it was the glamor of England's Princess Diana that captivated my sisters and me. Yes, a huge stereotype I know for young girls to be infatuated with princesses, but there is something about real live ones, especially when you are just a little girl. As I grew older however, it was Princess Masako who really captured my imagination.
The daughter of a Japanese diplomat and President of the International Court of Justice, Masako attended both Harvard and Oxford University before marrying into the conservative Japanese Royal Family.
The pairing of a modern and educated woman like Masako, who had worked at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs before her marriage, seemed to signal a new dawn for the notoriously private and traditional Japanese Royal Family. Japanese women would have an accomplished and independent female role model to look up to, one who would very much be in the public eye. For my young mind, it appeared as though the world was about to be introduced to its first modern day Princess.
But the world never saw Princess Masako come into her public role. Though widely speculated in the media for years, it has officially been confirmed that the Princess, who has pretty much been absent from the public's eye since early 2000, suffers from "nervous and emotional disorders."
The Japanese Royal Family calls her condition an "adjustment disorder" even though sources confirm that the pressure to produce a male heir caused Masako to seek professional treatment.
How incredibly sad and disturbing that in this day and age the pressure to give birth to a son, literally cost this woman her sanity. It is even more upsetting that Masako was such an educated and accomplished woman. It is a loss to women all over the world that we never got to see Princess Masako come into bloom, come into her full potential, both privately and publicly.
Though ancient Japanese Imperial Law stipulates that succession is passed solely through male heirs, hence the intense familial pressure placed on Masako.
However, it is not only in Japan where we see this kind of stress on women. Around the world, sons are still valued more than daughters, especially in the Global South.
One just has to pay attention to common phrases thrown at pregnant women to get a sense of which sex a culture values. In Bangladesh, we say having a son first is "good luck," and next door in India, where female infanticide (the intentional aborting of female fetuses), is so common that there is literally a shortage of women in the country, a common blessing for expectant women is, "may you be the mother of a hundred sons."
I would say smart family planing and birth control are the smarter options, but that is just me!
Seriously though, even though it has been beyond proven women and girls are just as valuable, if not more, than sons and boys, "sex-selective" abortions in Asia, especially in India and China, show us that culturally in many parts of the world a son is still viewed as an investment, while a daughter is considered a burden. The Economist even published an article recently detailing this on-going phenomenon, calling it a "worldwide war on baby girls."
It is 2010 and we are dealing with what is a global modern- day gendercide. Get use to that word. It is what it is.
Ironic that I am writing this post today on International Women's Day, a time to recognize and celebrate women's accomplishments around the world. But I think that makes this post even more more relevant.
Today we should not only celebrate how far women have come, but recognize how far we still have to go, and how much work remains to be done so that we can ensure a secure and safe future for women and girls.
Recognizing cultural biases towards sons and female infanticide, is a huge step in securing and protecting the rights of both women and girls around the world.
Cross-posted from "Anushay's Point."
Follow Anushay Hossain on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AnushaysPoint
I'm not satisfied with just 2 women becoming successful web publishers. For some reason, I revel in Tina & Arianna's successes with the Daily Beast & HP. Perhaps it's because I admire witty & successful women.
Wither Japan; will the empire ever have a queen? Will Japan's population keep shrinking?
Many women are taught to accept this skewed belief or forced by their religion or the more powerful males in their lives to go along with it..
And although I am pro-choice, I draw the line at gender-specific abortions or in most cases female genocide.
P.S: I am a proud/happy mother of two, a boy and a girl. When pregnant with the first one, the boy, I really had no preference since either way it would be the first. However, when pregnant with the second, the girl, I was praying for it to be a girl. My husband and I were over the moon when told. She couldn't be more welcomed. Guess who is the Princess of the house? :-)
I could not agree with you more. Women will not admit it too frequently, but I know any number of American & European women of all faiths or no faith, who (1) wished for sons during pregnancy &/or (2) were terribly relieved at birth to be told they had a baby boy instead of a new daughter &/or (3) showed marked favoritism to their sons over their daughters throughout their lives; spent more money on their son's education, etc., all this from women were not from any form of so-called "traditional" society. One of my longterm friends (Swedish immigrant to USA) has expressed to me that her situation growing up in Sweden was remarkably similar to mine in the USA, both of our moms being very much of the previous generation, but modern in their lifestyles with the one similar grand exception: they favored guess which kid?