I spent my fall break in Canada…no study for 4 days… and now..:(”’

I researched on topics alot today…and I think that I’m writing on Male dominace in a family in a Muslim Culture. and compare it with other cultures to prove that its not the religion which makes male so much dominant in Muslim states and encourage Domestic Voilence.

hahaha..I was wrong…I never wrote on that topic. I reseached on another topic instead…”Women Devaluation in American Culture”. Here it is…

Incivility inside Civility: Women Rights Violation an American History?

“The world is in a war”, these are the most clichéd words one may hear during a conversation on world politics or the current affairs. But what actually is the war everyone talks about? Some point it as the clash between cultures – the east and the west, some call it the clash between religions, while others term it as a clash between thoughts – fundamentalism and moderation. All the news we encounter these days pull our minds back into the clouds of uncertainty and make us think that never before has earth witnessed this from mankind. But in all these hyped issues, our minds often neglect that our history has always dwelled forward tightly embedded within this cloud of darkness. Whatever we witness today is no surprise to the world when one may compare it to what mankind has fought over for ages, and is still fighting over. Such is the case with one of the most brutal wars our race has ever witnessed, the clash between genders.

The clash between genders has always been a very one-sided issue. A synonym to the same topic might be the concept of ‘Male Dominance’, ‘Women Devaluation” or more popularly known ‘Women Rights Violation’. Some say that this issue shouldn’t be a concern now to the modern America as long gone are days of Susan Anthony. A general idea found is that the Women rights violation is significantly excluded in the eastern world now, or more commonly the third world countries. It is particularly convincing when women devaluation practices in America are viewed parallel to the women rights violations that occur elsewhere. The question that ought to be answered now is whether women rights violation in America is actually over or is it just hidden under more brutal and violent practices that take place in undeveloped parts of the world.

In this paper, “Incivility inside Civility: Women Rights Violation an American History?”, I will analyze the main kinds of women rights violation that still takes place in the modern America, limited to the circle of a family. I’ll move through three basic sub-topics one by one, citing the results from different data surveys, excerpts from popular literature and research texts and references from online and printed articles to put forward simple logics that people often fail to consider and bring into view the present situation in America with regard to the topic. The three basics sub-issues that will get my focus will be the problems of Sex-Selective Abortions, FGMs (Female Genital Mutilations) and the most talked about domestic violence. Throughout the paper I will point out common practices of women rights violation that are still practiced in America, but which often go unnoticed under the cover they get from being relatively ‘civilized’.

American society is undoubtedly the most advanced and civilized society of its time. But is this fact enough to put forward the notion that our society has overcome all its women rights issues. David M Newman in his book, “Sociology of Families” argues that that the woman devaluations in America can easily been seen in even most minute social practices, such as language for instance. “For example, many more words compare women to animals, such as ‘bitch’ and ‘fox’ than males to animals”. According to him women were considered “products and prisoners of their own reproductive systems” to nineteenth century Americans (Newman, 2002, p. 135). He says that scholars at that time even warned that women who tried to get involved in education or any male dominated professions would be not only be fighting against nature but would badly hurting their reproductive systems as well and might even go insane in the process. Even today, the board of trustees of the American Psychiatric Association continue to debate over the inclusion of “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” in its official manual of mental disorders ((Newman, 2002, p. 135)), something which is sighted by many as a left over trace of women devaluations that had occurred in the past. Even a quick glimpse into America’s political history hints strong biases towards males when one may find not even a single woman in the list of total 42 American Presidents.

A very important aspect of women devaluation throughout the world is parent’s preference for having a male child over female. Although countries most notorious for this grisly crime are our rising global economies of India and China, America may not be considered completely pure from it. Sex preference is actually a name given to a feeling of wanting one gender more than the other. This preference may not necessarily transform into a physical action unless it reaches an extreme, or receives an encouragement from the ongoing culture. When it does get transformed, it gets the shape of female infanticide – the killing of a female new born baby because of her gender or modernly used civilized term, sex-selective abortions.

The evidence of sex preferences amongst American parents in their children can easily be traced back to old literary texts such as Edward Albee’s Zoo Story 1958, where one character accuses the other of being a “vegetable” for not been able to get her wife a male child (Albee, 1958, p. 47). Statistically, sex-preference in American parents may be further supported by data that was collected during 1973 U.S. National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) which indicated that about 1/2 of married women preferred to have sons while only 1/3 preferred daughters (Coombs). Although there is not much evidence that statistically proves the conversion of this mind set into sex-selective abortions but it is simple logic given that the free will American abortion laws gives to its parents can easily express a preference into a brutal action. Kevin Walsh, who is visiting Assistant Professor at Villanova Law School and a Harvard Law School graduate cited in his article in 1996 that each year roughly 42 percent of all baby girls that should’ve been born are aborted. On the other hand, the similar figure for boys was only 25 percent (Walsh, 1996). In other words it can be deduced that if you are a female in the fetal stage in America, you have little more than half a chance of making it out of the womb.

Experts consider that an important reason for these odd numbers of sex-selective abortions is the influx of large number of Asian Immigrants in the US, mostly Indian, Korean and Chinese. These cultures have a long history of female gendercides and it is evident from some recent research that they have brought traces of this crime here as well. According a news reported by ABC News, United States Census 2000 shows that male-female child ratio amongst these Asian families (exclusively Indian, Chinese and South Korean) after the first child being female are inflating the odds to 1.17 to 1 and 1.51 to 1 if the family had two daughters already. The normal male-female ratio is considered to be 1.05 to 1. These male biased figures appear to be recent and surprising as the 1990 United States Census remained completely muted on the issue. Why male gametes with Y-chromosomes have started to fertilize more ova than those with X-chromosomes if there are girls already present in the family? To get the answer one may look at another trend that occurred in the same time period. The use of prenatal ultrasound amongst non-Japanese Asian mothers also doubled from around 38 percent to 64 percent during the period 1989 to 1999 (Schmid, 2008). So it is evident that the availability of prenatal sex determination and induced abortions are one of the most important factors resulting in this odd change (Almond, D, & Edlund, L, 2008). The advent of these new technologies have no doubt reduced the brutalities of Female infanticides but one may wonder how different are these techniques actually from what we used to do when we were uncivilized. It is the same practice but in a civilized way.

On the other hand, no concrete effort has come forward in order to limit this crime in America. According to “NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll 2008” (NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, 2008) 49% of Americans think that abortion should remain legal the way it is while 47% consider it worthy to be banned or only be allowed in exceptional cases, like rape for instance. When it does come to sex-selective abortions, most Americans are quick in expressing strong anti feelings on the issue, but on the other hand when two congressmen Trent Franks, and Jeff Fortenberry put forward a bill to “prohibit discrimination against the unborn on the basis of sex or race”, the issue draws little press attention (Mosher, 2008).

Another issue which draws a lot of attention worldwide is the practice of Female Genital Mutilation-FGM which is considered exclusive to some third world Arab and African countries. FGM is one the most brutal thing a family could do to their daughter. The process is really painful and mostly carried out by untrained personals in highly unhygienic conditions, with mostly results victims not surviving the process. FGMs have never been related to United States and have always been opposed greatly by the dominant educated force here. But some evidences do show the presence of FGMs in some parts of the society. In 1996, Congress directed Department of Health and Human Services to develop estimates of the prevalence of women and girls with or at risk for FGM/FC in the United States. The paper reported, as derived by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that in 1990 there were an estimated 168,000 girls and women living in the United States with or at risk of FGM’s (Jones, Smith, Kieke & Wilcox). When FGM is carried out in Eastern societies, people call it ‘suppression of women’ as they have no other option; their survival is at stake:

In a culture in which men will not marry you unless you have been mutilated…and you considered prostitute if you are not mutilated, you face a very big problem. Women mutilate their daughters because they really are looking down the road to a time when their daughters will…marry and at least have a roof…and food. (Walker & Parmar, 1993 p 277)

According to Newman this practice may seem extreme to many Americans, but too many American women also experience abuse and mutilations rooted in gender inequality. For instance, he mentions a new trend in cosmetic plastic surgery, “designer laser vaginoplasty” which is surgical enhancement of the vulva, for “purely aesthetic” purposes and “hymen repairs” which is process used to hide sexual misconduct and reinstate fake virginity. Bjornbentlage & Thomaseich write that in the US, women from South American origins as well as from conservative Christian milieus where virgin marriages are increasingly valued, are reportedly making use of this operation in rising numbers (Bjornbentlage & Thomaseich, 2007) The reason why women opt for hymen repairs is similar to why their parents opt FGMs for them i.e. the fear that their male partners will either reject them or will prefer virgins over them. Women are thus indirectly forced by their male dominated society to take this step if they want to keep their sexual and social lives alive. Although these practices are carried out in America at relatively minute scale and it is highly unlikely that these are performed by untrained professionals or in unsterile conditions but one may wonder how different they actually are from FGMs.

Women devaluations in families can never be completely discussed unless the issue of domestic violence makes it to the table. Domestic violence is defined as acts of physical violence perpetrated against women by present or former intimate partners, whether spouses or former intimate partners (Wilt, S & Olson, S, 1996). As is the case with other women rights violation issues, domestic violence is also thought of as mostly excluded to the undeveloped third world. But it may not be wrong to say that its prevalence in America is as strong as anywhere else. Many American women who are murdered die at the hands of a husband, boyfriend or ex-boyfriend bent on exerting control (Newman, 2002, p.137). More than three American women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day and a total of 1,247 women were killed this way in the year 2000 (End Abuse). According to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey, nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives (End Abuse, 1999). Total estimates range from 960’000 incidents to over 3million incidents a year. As shown in the diagram below(UN, 2002), United States has the highest number of rapes per year in the world, accounting for 28.9% of total rapes on earth that results in 78 rapes each hour, 1872 rapes each day, 56160 rapes each month and 683,280 rapes each year. And make the figures worse, only 16% of rapes are ever reported to the police (CEASE). No doubt United States is in one of the worst position in regard to domestic violence.