It does or could happen to an extent everywhere. Not to the same extent. Some villages are said not to have have recorded a female birth in years. But notably, not all of what she's referring to in the missing stats have to do with aborting. Much is infanticide but I've been watching her feed for some time and often what she's posted on is about the difficulty with even having local authorities take an interest in the "disappearance" of adult women when requested by her parents/siblings.

Kathie & Thursdayd,
The NY Times video is excellent! The sense of insecurity is palpable - I held my breath through much of it. The video really captures the feeling extraordinarily well.

I remember standing at a crowded train station with my husband and our guide yet feeling very uncomfortable as it was clear some of the men were staring at me. I can't imagine what it's like to live that way.

Sex-selection abortions are hardly unique to India, they have been widespread in China, to the point that the inbalance of the sexes in the current generation is becoming a serious problem (not enough wives to go around). However, other forms of endemic violence against women, such as dowry deaths, seem to be specific to India.

On the abortion issue, see the photo near the bottom of this piece: http://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com/...rmerly-french/

But note that I saw the poster in Pondicherry, notoriously influenced by the west, and nowhere else in India.

And further to the moral outrage question. In addition to outrage and concern about personal safety, another good reason to stay out of India right now is to send a message about the need for change. There's nothing like hurting people financially to get their attention. There are already reports of a significant drop off in female visitors. If places like the Oberoi start seeing their rooms empty there will be more pressure for change. I haven't forgotten the Indian travel agent/tour company owner posting on another thread here who thought that the issue was none of his business. If his actual business fell off he might change his mind.

I agree, thursdaysd. it's all too common for matters that affect women [and therefore the rest of their families] to be treated as a "minority" issue. you've certainly made me think twice about going to India, which is a shame, but just at the moment it seems to be the wrong time.

For insight into the overall powerlessness of women in India, I highly recommend the haunting and provocative book "May You Be the Mother of 100 Sons." I read it when it was published in 1991, and sadly, the situation has yet to improve.

Here is a link to a CNN article about a documentary produced by a German journalist and filmmaker highlighting India's endemic problems brought on by selective abortions.
It appears that unless the government intervenes by enacting and enforcing laws that protects females change will never happen.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/11/op...les/index.html

It appears that unless the government intervenes by enacting and enforcing laws that protects females change will never happen.>>

it most certainly will, because there will be [and probably already is] a shortage of women.

Thanks for the link, kikiv, there are a number of interesting pieces on that page.

annhig - unfortunately the shortage of women just makes things worse for some women who do exist. If you follow kikiv's CNN link you will see that women are kidnapped or bought from very poor areas with somewhat more women to be sold into marital slavery in other regions. More telling: a man who is planning to buy a bride (to be shared with his brothers!) knows that his problem is due to aborting female babies, but says that he would do the same thing himself.

You hear constantly that India is changing, but it is only what you might call "call center India" that is changing. Dirt poor village India, the India of the slums and the streets is not, but it is affronted by the changes it does see.

I agree with thursdays that the India that has benefited from globalization is the ""call center India".
Alas, some change has occurred in the rest of India where the majority of the population exists, although it has not been enough to promote gender equality.
India has a long way to go before ingrained beliefs fade and allow for new ideas and norms to flourish in future generations.

I came across two articles written by/about women who have visited India in the past year. I found it interesting to compare the two disparate points of view.
http://travel.cnn.com/female-solo-travel-india-218191
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/20/wo...rpt/index.html

kikiv - I read the same articles. However, the pro-solo-travel writer was East Asian, not Caucausian, and as the comments pointed out, that would likely lead to a very different experience. Of course, I have traveled in India without getting harassed (but in my 50s and 60s), although I have certainly encountered misogyny. I may still return to India, as I have yet to visit the northwest and Ladakh, but I have doubts about doing so on my own, and I will wait a while so as to help keep the tourist numbers down.

thrusdaysd it's true that the E Asian journalist may have been treated differently because of her ethnicity although we cannot know for sure that made a difference. Many women have traveled to India and not all of them have had to endure the insults and assaults that others have.

I was in India ten years ago but was traveling with my husband and I have to admit I never once felt uncomfortable even when I was the only Caucasian female in a crowd. I found both men and women to be extremely friendly and welcoming and it is one of the reasons I have wanted to return.

One thing I know for sure is that if I were a young woman traveling alone I would not choose India at this point in time. I don’t blame you for waiting to go back especially if you are going to be traveling solo. It is obvious the latest events have had an impact on India’s tourism industry. I’ve read that the number of visitors fell at the beginning of 2013 and a recent survey conducted by a chamber of commerce of tour operators showed visits from women have dropped 35%.

Aren't the majority of people in India "Caucasian"?

Hanuman you are correct. Indians are Caucasian. I should have said white or light skinned American female when referring to myself.

Not necessarily. See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caucasian

And from wikipedia: "In the United States, the term Caucasian has been mainly used to describe a group commonly called Whites, as defined by the government and Census Bureau"

But this is very much a side issue. I feel sure the usage was understood.

I see! From wikipedia:

<i>1. "The Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided that Asian Indians were ineligible for citizenship because, though deemed "Caucasian" anthropologically, they were not white like European descendants since most laypeople did not consider them to be white people."

2. "Scientific racism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries divided mankind into three "great races", Caucasoid (white), Mongoloid (yellow) and Negroid (black) in accordance with their own world-view.

The populations of the Indian subcontinent however were problematic to classify under this scheme. They were assumed to be a mixture of "Dravidian race", tentatively with an "Australoid" grouping, with an Aryan race, identified as a sub-race to the Caucasoid race, but some authors also assumed Mongolic admixture, so that India, for the purposes of scientific racism, presented a complicated mixture of all major types."</i>

So I guess it depend on your view of racism!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histori...races_in_India

May be this discussion has shifted from gang rape incident to racism in India. But to accept this fact that based upon these incidents which all are talking about, how can one decide not to visit India. These types of incidents can happen to anyone anywhere in world. You have to design ways to cater such problems and avoiding things is not a solution.

--
Allan

No, the point of this discussion is that these incidents do NOT happen everywhere, and that misogyny in India is much worse than in many other places.

NYT piece on this subject yesterday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/wo...invisible.html