The Shanghaiist picked up on a local Chinese newspaper report about a man who posted a baby girl as an online auction item with a starting bid of 1 yuan (US$0.15). The seller was the girl's uncle. Under China's one-child policy families are restricted to one baby, and apparently the girl's family was hoping for a male child to carry on the family name. While sad, it's true that this bias still runs very deep in Chinese society. But where was the mother in all this?
Thankfully the auction was shut down as soon as the e-commerce platform, Taobao (China's largest & most popular), caught sight of it. But the fact that someone thought it appropriate to sell a four-month old baby still triggers feelings of disgust and anger.
Elaine at Shanghaiist sums it up well:
The article wasn't clear about what the family was going to do next, but we're frankly quite horrified. Yes, we know this isn't anything really new for China - the traditional affinity for men over women plus the one child policy has managed to increase the gender gap to 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20 with no signs of slowing. We also get that this is probably one of the slightly less sad stories of what happens to female infants - at least she wasn't sold into sexual slavery (though we guess that would come after she's able to walk) or abandoned altogether.
At the same time, if all that propaganda and "women hold up half the sky" and economic opportunity can't change the minds of a good chunk of paternalistic misogynist parents, we're beginning to wonder what will.
What needs to happen in China for kids to not be put up on Taobao because they happened to be born with a vagina? We honestly don't know.
Sigh.
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Why do you ask, "where is the mother?"
She is voiceless, in the 2nd class, where women will remain in China, unless a huge shift occurs. They need a Woman's movement REVOLUTION.
A lot of men AND women view baby girls as burdens or unwanted. When they are left with the choice of only having one child many are choosing to have a son and abort, sell or abandon the daughters.