Gendercide and the West

http://www.itsagirlmovie.com/blog/gendercide-and-the-west

A friend of mine who's working in Bangalore recently posted this link to her Facebook page and I thought that it was worth sharing. I personally haven't seen the documentary, but from a quick perusal of the website, it appears that it would be a worthwhile watch. The one blog post that seemed especially relevant to our class was the one entitled, "Gendercide and the West" which picks up on the movie we watched a few weeks ago on gendercide in Mexico. While we often hear of sex-selective practices in China (due to their one child policy) and in India, it's less common to hear of these practices in the West.

I wonder how the social/cultural preference for boys can be overcome, of it that is even possible. Certainly there are educational programs with aims to do just that, but how much can such embedded practices really change, and in what time span are we expecting change? While these questions are largely abstract and theoretical from my single, childless, Western perspective they have very real implications for childbearing children all over the world, especially those in countries who are encouraging smaller family sizes.