CSI

My cat (with whom I discuss these matters) agrees that the two Sunday articles that contributed most to insomnia last night were noteworthy.

Gianna Jessen: I was aborted at seven and a half months
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article331008.ece

and

Battle of the sexes could get nasty for Chinese men
http://www.sundayherald.com/53183

1. I have serious doubts about Gianna's story, which is relayed through adoptive parents' accounts. On the web, I find that she was born 10 weeks pre-term (30 weeks), but in the IoS it was 7-and-a-half months- 34 weeks. An elective abortion at 34 weeks? Gianna's account fails to fill in details for the grounds of her abortion at ?30/ ?34 weeks. After even 24 weeks gestation , she would not have been eligible for elective abortion except in the case of foetal abnormality or threat to the mother's life from physiological complications.

Let's be clear elective psychological/social abortions cannot be obtained past 24 weeks. My personal opinion is that GiannaJesson.com enjoys her cult of personality as a symbol for the extremely small number of pregnancies aborted in the 2nd trimester, let alone the last 6 weeks of pregnancy, a gestation at which she claims to have been aborted. Such procedures according to local law could only have been performed at that gestation for severe foetal abnormality or lifesaving reasons. Something stinks here. Check your sources please, and tell me whether you smell fish when you read these

http://www.abortionfacts.com/survivors/giannajessen.asp
http://members.tripod.com/~joseromia/gianna.html
http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/jessen.ht

2. This throwaway article raises what I believe to be a historical and biological reality-a systematic undervaluing and appropriation of female children. Sadly I will miss this fascinating sounding lecture on material/economic consequences of skewed sex ratios, using modern China as the exemplar. This idea may sound sick, but this is pure experimental biological anthropology, and I must appreciate it.

A skew towards female infanticide, producing a skewed sex ratio, has been operating for millenia, and in modern-day China its also the boys who are reserved at their sister's cost. Despite being primary labourers and producers (kids, plant foods, fuel gatherers) women are frequently seen and transacted as trade items. Just see Malinowski or Levi-Strauss to confirm this. Or listen to the R4 report today on the Punjabi practise of Vanni (giving of females in slave marriage to an enemy clan that's been wronged).

Perhaps one of the contributants to global patriarchy, thinking historically, is female minority in population terms. imagining a sex-biased society, crude male/female combat would have/will have been the least the least of a girl's concerns - after all, the boys will always win in a rape contest. It's the more subtle economics that may be more revealing, when men are numerous and women scarce. In future China, circumstances may dictate a male competition for a shortage of women, and the consequences are various and nasty both for men and women. I'm not in the business of prediction (no psychic powers claimed- official), but but this is setting up a nad chess position for women, unless they're very clever. It's all economically similar to what Mgt Atwood predicted in the Handmaid's Tale, many years ago ow. You'd have classes of women for protected breeding, and another for sex. It'snot a future I'd relish.