Why are male babies still being awarded preferential treatment?

A friend of mine is pregnant: she and her husband are absolutely delighted. They have been trying for a baby for almost a year now, and had almost given up hope. When I met up with them both for a celebratory lunch last week, we naturally began discussing the baby: I asked when my friend was due, and whether she had any particular names in mind. When I asked her about the baby’s sex, her face paled and her husband immediately looked awkward. I didn’t want to push the issue, since I wasn’t quite sure how exactly I had overstepped the mark, but they both explained to me that as a result of their family backgrounds (both are of Indian origin albeit from entirely different regions of India), they had chosen not to pursue the question of whether their baby was male or female.

From speaking with them, I learnt that male babies are generally considered more ‘covetable’ in certain areas of rural India. Although both my friend and her husband abhorred the very notion of idealizing one sex over another, they both recognised the fact that their respective families would be hoping for a male child and were therefore refusing to find out the sex of the baby in advance of the birth. They also told me that in certain areas of London – those which traditionally host large Indian communities – the local hospitals refuse to carry out the testing (known as ‘Amniocentesis’) which indicates the sex of the foetus as a precautionary measure to prevent untoward pressure being placed upon the pregnant woman. Just to be super clear: by ‘untoward pressure’, what I mean is that my friend would have been encouraged to abort the foetus if the child were discovered to be female.

My friend and her husband are what you would typically describe as ‘modern indians’: they didn’t meet through an arranged marriage, she works as a solicitor and he works as a developer. I don’t understand how these two wonderful people are faced with the sort of social pressures that I associate with medieval times. The reason behind the preference for male over female babies is apparently financial; men are traditionally the breadwinners , bringing home a salary where women are typically seen as unlikely to provide financial support. Essentially, male babies are seen as ‘insurance’ against future financial hardship. I can understand how this sort of attitude towards women might develop in a very poor country with predominantly conservative values, but I was surprised to learn that this attitude has reached London.

From my understanding, it isn’t that female babies are unwelcome, it is more that the high value placed upon male babies decreases the ‘value’ of the female baby. I was beginning to understand why my friends were reluctant to disclose or even discover the sex of their unborn child when such a weight was placed upon the issue. It concerns me, not only that a ‘value’ was being placed upon a male child over and above a female child (I was already aware, as I assume most of you are, about this type of preferential treatment in parts of rural India), but that my friend and her husband were still wary of this treatment despite the fact that they live in cosmopolitan London.