Rebranding girls

Will it be a boy? Or will it be a girl? “As long as it’s healthy,” is the most common refrain among parents-to-be. Yet in many parts of the world, or maybe even among your friends and family, there is a secret (or not-so-secret) preference for sons. This is particularly true in the case of first-born children. It’s as if only once a son has been born, can parents then be happy with a daughter. So what is it that makes us daughters so much less desirable? And what in the name of sugar and spice and everything nice are we doing about it?

Additional Articles

When markets say ‘meh’: what really rocks the markets

Why did investors brush off Osama bin Laden and a federal election?

Money Media, Investing

The month of May opened with a bang – literally in fact. The death of Osama bin Laden was a symbolic end to an era of grief over the events of 9/11. In Canada, the political death knell was sounded for the leaders of the Liberal and Bloc Québécois parties, as the federal election resulted in a solid Conservative majority government with an NDP official opposition. One would think these major events would rock the stock market. Many analysts had forecasted that a Conservative majority would push prices up due to the promise of renewed political stability, while others warned prices would plummet if the NDP gained a larger presence and could influence government policy toward more spending and higher taxes. And yet following the events of May 2nd, both the NYSE and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), gave the equivalent of a shrug and a “meh.” read more »

100 million women have vanished from the planet

What you can do to stop gendercide

Family, Money Media

“Women are missing in the millions - aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990, an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100 million; the toll is higher now.” So detailed a shocking and chilling article in The Economist in 2010. A new book, Half the Sky, lays out an agenda for the world's women and three major abuses which cost us our lives: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; and, maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. read more »