In Praise of Daughters

The June 2010 edition of The Monthly magazine has a disturbing article on the prevalence of gendercide (sic), the active killing of girl babies, around the world. It suggests that the rate of male/female births cannot exceed about 1.09 naturally (that is, 109 boy babies born for every 100 girls). In Australia we enjoy a ration of about 1.06. In a way I feel comforted by that data, that we here in this advanced society are not discriminating like those others such as the developing world and China which were singled out in the article for particular attention.

Then I read that in some communities in India one of the reasons for preferring a son in the family is that only sons can light one's funeral pyre and thus allow ascent into heaven. Such a scheme seems to me, having only daughters, to be unfair. Broad gender discrimination is tied directly in this social scheme, to gender discrimination in religious practice. Discrimination which systematically arrives at gendercide!

But can we be so smug? Where it disallows women to take on the role of bishops, our Church is also discriminating. Of course, we do not expect its consequences to be so dire as gendercide, but consequences there must surely be. Refusal of the appointment of women to this most senior role in our Church, or the administration of the Eucharist, or prevention of women's participation in any other normal leadership role in the community says much to them of how they are valued? Julia Gillard's acceptance by Australian society as its Prime Minister will be an important test of our social maturity. Can the Church afford not to take notice?

A socially-contextual reading of Christ's ministry shows he was insistent always on radical inclusion of the socially marginalised (and I would count women as socially marginalised in the Australian Church) even at the risk of his own social well-being. For instance, Jesus refused to condemn a woman accused on strictly male-dominated grounds of adultery (John 8:3-11) and even let one prepare him for burial, and ascent to heaven (John 12:6). Even Paul, caricatured so often as an unbending misogynist, claims Christ has done away with the old categories (Galatians 3:26-29).

So, while having a son may be good to light your funeral pyre, it seems to me that a loved and honoured daughter can also do much to aid the final ascent.