In sex-selection poll, border collies are nice

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 05 July 2011 23:00

Since I customarily concern myself with the larger issues in life like the uprising in Libya, the federal deficit, and the latest advances for housebreaking puppies, I decided to say a thing or two or three about a survey that shows Americans prefer sons to daughters.

Being a father of four girls, who have cost me dearly financially and emotionally and in terms of hair loss, I look at the world differently now.

Over the years, I’ve become a feminist sympathizer. Raised in a chauvinistic culture with an Italian father who never washed a dish or did the laundry, I had a conversion later in life, and now I even make the bed once in a while, although usually it has to be remade by the arbiters of good housekeeping.

Gallup has conducted the poll about gender preferences since 1941, and the results have remained the same: If Americans can have only one child, 40% want a boy and 28% want a girl.

I took the poll some time ago, and when they asked my preference, I responded “chocolate Labrador,” but I’m a new man now, which means to say if I were surveyed today, I’d definitely reply “border collie.”

The Gallup research showed that men prefer sons over daughters by 49 to 22%, while women are evenly split. Republicans, more than Democrats, prefer boys, but I’m an Independent, and I don’t know what that means.

People younger than 30 chose boys over girls by 54% to 27 percent, but that margin decreased with older respondents, so that among people over 65, boys had only a 2% advantage.

I guess the older you are, the more you convince yourself daughters will take care of you during your senior years; however, I harbor no such delusions, which means I’m still counting on Social Security and Medicare to carry me through.

I don’t want to put down sons because I was one once myself, but daughters come with added benefits. They supposedly maintain a close relationship with their fathers, and they don’t move far from home, although there are days I want them to move a little further.

Raising daughters has also taught me the world is notoriously unfair to women, from inequitable pay scales in the corporate world to sexual harassment in the workplace and the low esteem society has for motherhood and care-giving.

But the situation worldwide is much more horrifying, particularly in countries like China and India, where over the past three decades, sex-selective abortions have led to an estimated 163 million missing girls, according to Mara Hvistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

In some countries, there are three abortions for every birth, and cultural bias favoring boys has led to “gendercide” and a new world order that promotes sex-trafficking so rich families can buy brides from poor countries.

The urban, educated middle-class is the driving force behind sex-selection, Hvistendahl says. But the victims are the poor ... and women.

Joe Pisani can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .