Women in India: Reproduction and Gender Discrimination
Rebecca Turko
University of Arkansas – Fort Smith

Women in India: Reproduction and Gender Discrimination

One of the things I am very passionate about is women’s health and education. In the documentary World in Balance: People Paradox, one of the main points they talked about is how women are not educated. Women specifically in North India don’t go to school because as young girls they had the responsibility of taking care of their siblings, cleaning the household, and cooking meals. They grow up living their lives continuing to do those things on top of bearing multiple children. This is significant because if women don’t slow down on having children India will become so overpopulated it will be almost unlivable.
In the North India women are highly illiterate and spend their lives bearing approximately 5 children each or more. This causes an increase in population and increases the level of illiteracy because their children will also most likely be illiterate too. If women don’t slow down on having children the population of India could almost double. This proves a problem because according to the film and when it took place there were 177 million people at that time living in a place close to the size of the state of Colorado. Every three years the population increases by 10 million people.
It has become apparent that there are 35 million fewer women than men in all of India because women were forced to abort all babies conceived that were not male. Men typically want their wives to have boys because of two reasons. One reason is that sons usually stay behind and take care of their parents and the estate then marry locally. The second reason is because girls are usually seen an economic liability. Parents must give a gift of cash or gifts to marry them off.
With many women conceiving female children and being forced to abort, knowing the child’s sex before birth is illegal. Gender Discrimination takes place in even the wealthiest of households. Many parents in the upper class want a two-child family one of them being a son. India is trying to work towards reducing population growth but in ways that doesn’t lead to sex-selective abortion. India needs to learn to accept women as an equal gender and not only favor men.
Opportunities for women would grow if they didn’t spend their entire lives having children. If women could gain access to education and job opportunities they would have much more to live for and could lead better lives to provide for their families along with their husbands. Children follow the lives of the parents. If children are taught at an early age to do more with the lives they have they could improve their quality of life. The illiteracy rates would decrease amongst women and their children. Education is literally the key to everything.
In conclusion, with the population in India growing at massive rates every couple years, it is important for people in India to find ways to decrease this ongoing problem. Women need to be provided with ways to gain a better education and not live a life of only bearing children. Men need see women as equals and not gender discriminate when their wives have female children. The goal is to have a two-child family. The gender of their children shouldn’t be an issue. Women are just as valuable as men and vice versa. The quality of people’s lives in India would increase greatly if job opportunities would be extended to all people. The first step starts with education. Children need to attend school instead of caring for each other in the home. The more educated they become the more job opportunities they will receive. Women who do what they want with their lives have more control and then they'll have the number of children they want. The film states that most women want fewer children. If fertility drops just below two children, by mid-century, global population could stabilize at around nine billion people.