What ‘Too Many Men, Too Few Women’ Can Lead To: A book on the violence & disruption generated by gender imbalance - Edited by Ravinder Kaur
Too Many Men, Too
Few Women, the title of the
book edited by Ravinder Kaur is a punch in the mouth. The problems associated
by gender imbalances in India and China have never been properly understood.
Whether due to China’s One Child policy, or the misogyny
(often coyly referred to as “son preference”) displayed in much of Indian
society, we are at a difficult inflection point. In the introduction, Kaur
refers to calculations that indicate that during the period 2020-80 about 32
million men in China will be “surplus”, in India that number is 40 million. To
give a comparison, the total number of soldiers deployed by all the militaries
in the world is about 65 million. This is equivalent to these “surplus” men,
who may never marry, never have a “normal life”. Unsurprisingly there is great
fear of what violence this may unleash. Kaur introduces us to how this
conversation is unfolding.
The discussion on the ‘dangers’ of surplus
men was set off by two political scientists, Valerie Hudson and Andrea M. den
Boer, in an alarmist paper, ‘A Surplus of Men, A Deficit of Peace: Security and
Sex Ratios in Asia’s Largest States’, published in 2002 in the journal, International
Security. They later expanded the paper into a book, Bare Branches:
Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population (2004). The
paper and the book raised the question of the effects of extreme gender
discrimination on national and international security, arguing that ‘High sex
ratio societies simply have a different security calculus’ (Hudson and den Boer
2002: 37). They ask, ‘What are the likely domestic, regional, and perhaps even
international repercussions if their growth [of young unattached men] is left
unchecked? (Hudson and den Boer 2004: 229).
Devoting considerable space to
documenting links across history between surplus males and rebellions, rise in
crime and general social disorder, they make two specific predictions about
China and India. They predict that China is likely to use its surplus males to
‘suppress violence at home and export it abroad through colonisation and war’,
while India, as an ethnically heterogeneous society, may find itself engaged in
higher levels of inter-community strife and conflict within the subcontinent
(ibid.: 202). Emphasising that their predictions cannot be precise, they
maintain that significant numbers of unmarried men could have an ‘unmistakable
aggravating and amplifying effect’ on general law and order (Hudson and den
Boer 2002: 37). They urged the Indian and Chinese governments to pursue
policies that take note of the possible consequences of the gender imbalance,
while alerting other governments to include this unique new factor in their
thinking on security.
While such predictions
may seem far-fetched with little evidence on the ground, the authors’ main
proposition — that an excess of males is in general disruptive of society and
may put women at greater danger — has found some support in a few academic
studies. Thus, Edlund et al. (2007) hypothesise that increasingly, male sex
ratios have contributed to the rise in criminality in China, doubling crime
over two decades. Based on annual province-level data for the period 1988–2004,
they find that a 1% t increase in the sex ratio raised violent and property
crime rates by 3.8%, and suggest that ‘the sex imbalance may account for
up to one-sixth of the overall rise in crime’.
Based on data from China’s Law Yearbook
for 2001, they state that ‘90% of all arrestees in 2000 were men; and the
overwhelming majority (70%) of perpetrators of violent and property crimes in
China were between 16 and 25 years old’ (2007: 1–2). Zhang (2010) links the
rising incidence of rape and sexual harassment in China to the scarcity of
women. Hesketh et al. (2011), however, argue that as yet, there is little
evidence for the hypothesis that low-status, unmarried males will band together
to become a threat to social order on a wide scale in China. Their research
shows that while such men do indeed have low self-esteem and are inclined to
depression, there is no evidence that they are prone to aggression or violence.
Yet many scholars in
both India and China assert that there is a likely link between the
increasingly masculine sex ratio and the growing incidence of violence of all
sorts, especially against women. Zhang states that in China, there is a rising
incidence of rape and sexual harassment, and that the scarcity of women is
unlikely to enhance their position in society (2010: 38). She argues that due
to the increased risk of gender-based violence against women, the rising demand
for sex work, and the development of trafficking networks, women will be at
greater risk.
Discussing the shortage of brides, she says, ‘Bare branches
[unmarried men] in rich provinces can buy brides or sexual services from women
from poorer provinces such as Yunnan and Guangxi’ (ibid.: 19– 20). Chowdhry
(2011: 246), writing about the unmarried men in Haryana, an Indian state with a
longstanding skewed sex ratio, says ‘The unemployed and single men of Haryana
provide the raw material for all agitations in the state.’ She further states
that ‘certain villages in Haryana have become so notorious for crime that people
do not wish to give their daughters in marriage to those villages’ (ibid.).
Like others, she also notes that the conjoining of two socially disapproved
statuses—unmarried and unemployed — can have severe effects on society, with
unmarried men being seen not as an asset, but as a threat (ibid.: 247).
In their chapter in
this volume, Bose et al. examine whether domestic violence and control over
women is higher in areas with a gender imbalance. They argue that although the
‘dyadic power’ of women is expected to be higher when they are in shorter
supply, Indian women in districts with high sex ratios experience more physical
abuse and a higher degree of control than those in areas with better sex
ratios. Their research could be further extended to explore a repeated
ethnographic finding - that men in such areas exercise greater surveillance
over their wives and display a higher degree of suspicion if wives venture out
to work.
In some high sex ratio Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, subjecting
the woman to constant childbearing is used as a mode of exercising control over
her. It is obvious that control over women’s fertility becomes further
intensified when she is expected to produce sons and not daughters. Ahlawat’s
chapter in this volume makes the point that cross-region brides in the Indian
state of Haryana, who are brought from far-off states consequent to the local
bride shortage, are subjected to greater domestic violence as they lack natal
family support structures, which act as a shield for local brides.
In India, there have
been early discussions of the possible links between violence and adverse sex
ratios. In a much noted paper, Oldenburg (1992) argues that sex ratios tend to
be more masculine in areas that are more violence-prone, and where muscle power
is needed to protect and acquire property. Thus, murder rates tend to be higher
in the high sex ratio districts of Uttar Pradesh. Examining further the
relationship between crime, gender and society, Dreze and Khera (2000) find
that murder rates are indeed higher in districts with low female-male ratios,
and conclude that patriarchal, male-dominated societies are likely to be more
violent... Read more:
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