A commentor at Ginmar’s blog links to an opinion article in the Times. The basic point of the article is that the way to stop sexism and related problems in India is to allow female foeticide.

The writer begins by pointing out the fact that, while abortion is legal in India, sex determination isn’t. Now it is true that in an ideal world, you should be able to abort a foetus for whatever reason you like, but the fact is that that would be a problem in India. Aishwarya talks about it here.

The first part of the article presents a fairly sensible opinion in favour of abortion rights. And then it starts to go somewhat off.
I think the best way to raise the status of women in India would be to legalise sex-selection abortion, and allow as many of them as are requested. Without wanting to be all Margaret Thatcher about it ... market forces can be the resolution of many cultural problems.
So the solution to sexism and commodification of women is to ... er ... commodify them.

Then she presents a scenario of there being fewer women than men.
Consider, now, if there were a two-year waiting list for Indian women. Those 1000 men would soon be duking it out for those 793 ladies.
Now consider the words ‘duking it out’. The writer hasn’t thought it through. Consider there are fewer women than men, they are living in a situation where women aren’t considered important enough to be born, and consider the manner in which men would ‘duke it out’ for women.

Put simply, there would be an extraordinarily high increase in the abuse of the women who live. Market strategies are obviously not equipped enough to consider this. And of course, sexism would definitely not decrease. There would, if anything, be an increase in the treatment of women as property, which the writer vaguely acknowledges:
On finally getting his $80,000 woman, the man would then be doing the marital equivalent of polishing his wife every night with protective dubbin, and putting her on a special peg in the hallway.
The only difference between the situation now and then is that it would be the woman’s family who earns money from selling her, rather than the man’s family, as happens today.

Theoretically, the men would be much more respectful towards women, but there is no real basis for this.

The fact that this article even exists is an example of not thinking things through. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, even if you know how to write, it’s no use if you don’t know how to think.

PS: Also perhaps relevant is Matrubhoomi, a dystopic movie on the subject. I haven’t watched it, but I will link to Jai Arjun Singh’s review here.

Cross-posted on sthreeling. Comments are enabled there.