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Janette Sanchez
English 114B
Professor Makarosyan
26 April 2015
The Dangers of Femicide
Try to imagine yourself in a country with a certain culture and rituals. Now add to that
image that your parents and their ancestors come from a completely different culture. It should
not be too difficult to imagine. We are all juggling two different cultures living in America. In
Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Childhood Among Ghosts, the
narrator struggles with trying to understand and follow her Chinese culture among her American
influences. She describes how unfair women are treated that steps out of their culture due to her
own experience. One way women are being treated unfairly is through femicide. This is a
worldwide issue that has been going on for a long time and it is still occurring. Many of us do
not know what this is and it is rarely being investigated. It is a sexual/gender hate crime term
broadly defined as the killing of women of any age but definitions vary depending on the cultural
context. It is not talked about much because in different cultures many cases are justified one
way or another and therefore are not all kept on record as woman oppression or murder. Also,
many government systems fail to protect their women and are far from gender equality. A few
examples of woman hate crimes that are still occurring include, the killing of newborn baby girls
and the oppression of women in various ways.
One of the biggest problems in some countries concerning femicide is female infanticide.
This is the killing of baby girls under the age of 12 months simply because they were born
female. The top two countries that may develop serious problems regarding the balance of their
population between sexes are India and China. Countries like these have a strong preference for

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sons. The narrator knew this due to the story about the no name woman that her mother had
told her about. This woman, being her forgotten aunt, had an illegitimate child and killed herself
and her child. The narrator believes it was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for
boys. (Kingston 15). She knew that her aunts child was probably a girl due to the fact that she
killed her and knew that she did it out of love. Her aunts child would have lived a life without
purpose and be oppressed by those around her but maybe just maybe if her child was a boy, he
could have stood a chance. According to Superfreakonomics, in India giving birth to a baby boy
is like giving birth to a 401(k) retirement fund (Levitt and Dubner). There are many more
financial benefits in having a baby boy for the parents rather than having a baby girl. There are
also many more disadvantages if the parents conceive a baby girl. Women in these countries are
seen as weak and subservient while men are seen as the economic stability within their family
and country. Also women have to leave their family when they get married and join her
husbands family, therefore the parents depend on their sons to take care of them in old age.
When there are poor families in these countries they simply cannot afford to raise all their
children and end up killing their baby girls. And other times parents do not want to pay dowry,
the expenses for when their daughter is getting married, like in the Indian culture. These
expenses include an amount of money and valuable goods such as cars and real estate that are
given to their son-in-laws family. Not to mention they have to pay for the wedding.
The statistics of the population ratio in India and China of males to females is alarming.
Without enough women, reproduction and economic problems can occur. It is very sad that girls
are so undervalued in India that there are roughly 35 million fewer females than males in the
population. (Levitt and Dubner). Female infanticide has been an issue in India for centuries due
to Indias patriarchal nature. However, modern India has been trying to tackle this issue a few

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different ways. If a couple has two daughters an option for them is for either parent to be
sterilized. Also, the Indian government provides an annual amount for the care of their children
and a larger amount on their daughters 20th birthday.
In China, female infanticide has existed for a long time as well. In 1979, the One Child
Policy was enacted in order to keep the population in sustainable limits. Under this policy, if
people have more than one child their wages are cut down and they do not receive social
services. Like in India having a son is vital because it brings the most benefits to the parents. In
some cases baby girls are killed because they were not born of the preferred sex. According to
CNN there will be approximately 30 million more men than women [that] will reach adulthood
and enter China's mating market by 2020. However there are also laws in China that have
addressed this issue. For example, marriage law prohibits female infanticide and the Women
Protection Law prohibits infanticide and discrimination toward women that decide to keep their
female babies. Also the Maternal Health Care Law states that parents are also not allowed to get
an ultrasound in China in order to prevent abortion. The crime of infanticide is being addressed
in each country differently and some laws are more effective than others. What needs to change
is the peoples outlook on the bigger picture and the effects of infanticide. The struggle with this
is the financial burden that many families deal with in order to raise their children.
Like in India, in China women are also undervalued and stereotyped as weak and
impotent. The narrator describes the discrimination against her aunt as one that comes from the
culture ideals that her family follows. She knew this was bad and decided to come up with her
own explanation of why her aunt had a child with another man. Maybe her aunt was different.
More attention to her looks than these pulling of hairs and pickings at spots would have caused
gossip among the villager (Kingston 10). The narrator came up with the explanation that her

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aunt did not like braided hair or looking plain. And that is what got her into trouble within her
culture. People did not like that she was attracting so much attention with her looks, having guys
turn an eye at her. This was looked down upon and it is possible that she was actually in love
with the man that had her child. Although this infidelity scenario does not seem so out of the
norm for us, especially since her husband has not been around for so long, in many cultures such
as in China, this is taboo.
Femicide is a broadened term as the killing of women but a clearer way of looking at it is
the oppression of women to the point in which they no longer appreciate their own lives. It seems
drastic but there women that are so undervalued in many cultures that are not given civil rights
that provide them with an identity or a voice. Shalhoub provides an interesting definition for this
term as when she is effectively sentenced to death by murder and lives under the continual
threat of being killedI consider her a victim of femicide, and I thus redefine death as the
inability to live. Even when the victims of women oppression are alive they are also victims
of femicide because they feel threatened and meaningless; living a life without purpose. When a
womans free will is taken from her it can also lead her to killing herself. In the short story No
Name Woman the narrators aunt kills herself because her family and her village would
certainly not accept her or her baby girl because she conceived her from a man that was not her
husband. She knew her baby would not be taken care of or respected and felt the need to take her
life along with her childs. This is a tragic example of the way women are oppressed by their
culture. The aunt has no say in what path her life would take. She knew that she and her daughter
would probably be hated and possibly be killed by the villagers. After her death, her family never
mentioned her name again and forgot she ever existed. We say that your father had all brothers
because it is as if she had never existed. (Kingstson 1). Even after death, she was still being

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oppressed and hated for a mistake she made or maybe even for something that was not her fault
at all. The other half of the story that the narrators mother told is unfinished. We will never
know the true occurrences of the no name woman because she had no voice to tell her side of
the story.
Women oppression is not only caused by the act of killing them. It goes far beyond that.
In Kingstons short story No Name Woman before this woman decides to kill herself and her
child, the villagers raided her house. The villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a
private life, secret and apart from them (13). Although these villagers had no right to interfere
the way they did into her situation, they justified what they did claiming it affected their lives as
well. This does not make sense to me. No one should have the right to decide what your
punishment is if you have not committed a crime. Yet in her culture, having an illegitimate child
is taboo and therefore a crime that is not dealt prison time but worse, by oppressing you to the
point of dehumanizing you.
To put into view that women oppression goes beyond the drastic measure of killing a
woman, consider the outlook on prostitutes. Is that still going too far? Take women in general for
example. Men are always objectifying them; they do not need to be prostitutes. There are certain
factors weather it is culture, politics, media that influence men into thinking that they are not
looking at a human being but just for the pleasure that looking at women gives them. This itself
is oppression. And these women are also being victims of femicide. When they feel oppressed by
a man, it can take a toll on their self-esteem and their whole reason for living. Take the Japanese
culture for example. A study was done by the National Women's Education Center of Japan in
2006 discovered that, Forming the backdrop of human trafficking headed for Japan is the
simultaneous existence of a global economic gap, and an enormous demand for the sexual

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services of women, including survivors of human trafficking, who are foreign nationals
(Otsuki). Not only is there a high demand for sexual services in Japan but also its citizens are
fully conscious of what is going on. These sexual services also come from survivors of human
trafficking, which is a sickening image for me. Women are suffering enough for so many men to
not see them as human beings. Instead of demanding for sexual services they should be trying
to help fight against the crimes that lead to women oppression.
There are many things that can be done to prevent femicide. It may seem that there is no
hope, and women will always be seen as weak and less important than men. But we are needed
as much as men are needed to keep each race going. Killing a baby girl, or killing a woman
without any remorse, or objectifying women will certainly not solve this problem. People need to
be aware that there are many dangers of femicide and that they can be preventable by valuing our
women and treating them with the respect they deserve. No human wants to feel like they have
no purpose. Let us speak out about women empowerment.

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Works Cited

Brooks,Rob."China'sBiggestProblem?TooManyMen."CNN.CableNewsNetwork,04Mar.
2013.Web.25Apr.2015.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. "No Name Woman." The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood
among Ghosts. New York: Knopf, 1976. pp.1-16. Print.
Levitt, Steven D, and Stephen J. Dubner. Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic
Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. New York: William
Morrow, 2009. Print.
Otsuki, Nami and Keiko Hatano. Japanese Perceptions of Trafficking in Persons: An Analysis of
the 'Demand' for Sexual Services and Policies for Dealing with Trafficking Survivors.
Social Science Japan Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Summer, 2009), pp. 45-70. JSTOR. Web.
12 April 2015.
ShalhoubKevorkian, Nadera. Reexamining Femicide: Breaking the Silence and Crossing
Scientific Borders. Signs, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 2003), pp. 581-608. JSTOR. Web. 12
April 2015.