[ExI] Women

[F. C. Moulton]

On 12/27/2012 07:05 PM, spike wrote:
> 
> Buy and distribute the technology to determine gender of a fetus shortly
> after conception, and create arbitrarily many abortion clinics.  Those
> places which treat women abominably will choose to abort far more female
> fetuses than male.  Within a decade, they will suffer the modern China
> Syndrome: they suddenly notice there are not nearly enough girls.  The
> treatment of women in China has improved dramatically since the China
> Syndrome was noted.
> 
> I expect that the female/male ratio will reach an equilibrium at about
> 45/55.  Then the women will be treated as princesses.  Men will kill each
> other over them.   After that lethal battle, there will be just enough women
> to meet the demand, and all will be respected.
> 

Are you absolutely sure about your idea?

It seems to me that valuing woman so much that one would fight does not
necessarily imply that one would treat the women as a princess.  There
are a lot of complex social and cultural dynamics going on.  Consider
that in India where according to my understanding there already is a
female to male mismatch and young girls and women still do not have
social equality.  Are you arguing that making the situation more
imbalanced will somehow change the social dynamic? Perhaps the work on
the "missing women" in the population of India might be a good place to
start to see if your plan makes sense.

My suggestion: It seems to me that the first thing with 50% of the funds
is to really develop a deep understanding of the social, cultural,
psychological, medical and economic situation as it relates to women and
their role in society under consideration.  And this understanding must
include talking with and understanding the cultural and social
expectations of the people there.  In particular it would be a really
good idea to actually talk to the girls and women.

The developing world is full of stories of well meaning (and sometimes
not so well meaning) people flying in with buckets of money, big
projects and grandiose plans which often fail spectacularly after the
photo op is finished.

Fred

> That wouldn't even cost 20 billion.
> 
> spike
> 
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-- 
F. C. Moulton
moulton at moulton.com