Woman Worthless, Never Mind Female Support Networks: From a Reworking of the Arthurian Legend to Present Day India

I first decided to write up a piece about my frustration with the competitive and catty nature of many women in North American society, who try to tear each other down—all in the bid for hollow male approval, instead of banding together to rip apart the male-centric system. I thought about applying the example of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s overtly critical statement of the Christian hierarchy in The Mists of Avalon to argue that women need to come together and support each other; they are potentially half of the solution to misogyny. As I began to reread the book, however, the age-old theme of the patriarch placing value only on the male child/heir kept cropping up. As long as people think a pregnant woman is going to give birth to a male, there is hope; when a girl child comes into being, disappointment infiltrates all levels of Arthur’s realm. Bradley’s pro-feminist reinterpretation of a legend that is open to countless possibilities still cannot erase the fact that girl babies are less than equal to their male counterparts.

Bradley presents the devaluation of the female child in a tempered manner, through both sexes, which is highlighted through Morgaine’s character, who oft laments society’s repulsion to girl children. The story is a fantasy that allows Morgaine’s mother, Igraine, to keep and nurse her girl child despite her husband, Gorlois’ righteous need for a male heir. Of course, Gorlois has bastard sons with other women—women who Igraine treats with indifference, rather than as allies in the suppressive atmosphere. Although it is not Igraine’s fault she does not bear him a son (he’s very likely impotent, as a result of various reasons including age), he punishes her physically for her failure. Christian men simply don’t value inferior fetuses (girls).

The medieval European view of male worth compared to female burden, partly a consequence of male property rights, has not gone away, despite feminist movements in various parts of the world. The situation has gotten worse in some areas. India has received much press for the rising trend in sex selective abortions, often termed “miscarriages” to cover up the discriminate termination of female fetuses. Expensive dowries for burdensome women (never mind that women still perform the majority of housework and child raising) are deterrents for having girls and so many parents are opting for illegal ultrasounds (banned in 1994) in the second trimester to determine the sex of the unborn. Other influences like preference for boys (which are not specific to India) add to the growing numbers of sex-selective abortion, decided in the majority of cases not by the individual pregnant woman, but her family. The termination of female fetuses is so successful that there are approximately 800 girls born for every 1,000 boys in areas such as Haryana, Punjab, and Gujarat. The issue isn’t whether abortion itself should be allowed as a choice, but that it may turn into female genocide.

When discussing the discrimination against female fetuses, the non-abortive ratio of male to female births must be included. In general populations, for example, in Canada, the ratio is not too distorted in favour of females (one study found a 0.2% decrease in male births from 1970 to 1990) when taking into account external variables. Dodd suggests that light variances in the sex ration do naturally balance out. The birth rate of female children does, however, outstrip that of males in polluted environments. One such case study involves the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located on a heavily polluted reserve near Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. The birth ratio of this Chippewa nation is two girls for every one boy. Excluding cases of environmentally influenced male foetus termination, the willful removal of unborn females in India is the modern culmination of the medieval devaluation of women before they are even born.

The transition from communal medieval disappointment in female offspring to removal of female fetuses is a warning; sex-selective abortions do not lead to treatment of the female body as a worthy prized specimen for coveted breeding. The contrary is already being experienced in some regions in India, where women are sold, forced into polyandry, and abandoned or killed because they don’t produce sons. People on an international level must stand up and call for an end to the deadly discrimination. What happens in India is not only physical manifestation of the lack of female power within a patriarch, but also a call for global social justice intervention.