Exactly. In fact, there's evidence of this from cultural anthropologists who study infanticide. I would love to cite my source on this, but I honestly can't remember - it might be Hausfater and Hrdy's Infanticide or Ginsburg and Rapp's Conceiving the New World Order, or it could've been a journal article. I forget.
Anyway, whatever it was, the authors talked to Indian women who had aborted female fetuses, and many of the women expressed that they would have liked to keep their daughters, but they were under intense pressure from their husbands and families to produce sons. This pressure is not just "Oh, they won't like me if I don't give them a son" - this is, for many women, life-or-death pressure. Women in many places in India depend entirely on their husbands and husbands' families for everything. Divorce means being homeless. There are actually organizations set up now in some parts of India for adult women whose husbands have divorced them, because otherwise these women would be out on the street - they have no education, no job skills, and nowhere else to go. So when I say "They're pressured to have sons", it's a serious pressure.
no subject
Anyway, whatever it was, the authors talked to Indian women who had aborted female fetuses, and many of the women expressed that they would have liked to keep their daughters, but they were under intense pressure from their husbands and families to produce sons. This pressure is not just "Oh, they won't like me if I don't give them a son" - this is, for many women, life-or-death pressure. Women in many places in India depend entirely on their husbands and husbands' families for everything. Divorce means being homeless. There are actually organizations set up now in some parts of India for adult women whose husbands have divorced them, because otherwise these women would be out on the street - they have no education, no job skills, and nowhere else to go. So when I say "They're pressured to have sons", it's a serious pressure.