Are you the feminist or the chauvanist?

Keenya Woods - Mother Daughter First Conversation

  

Wanting a male child instead of a female is being sexist. But preferring a female child over a male is feminist? Why?

 As most of my elder cousins are expecting children, I am wondering how the “choosing the gender of your child” thing works. In many male-dominated chauvinist countries—due to the high rates of female infanticides and gender-biased abortions, as well as a low male–to-female ratio—governments have legally banned prenatal gender determination of the foetus. This got my grey cells tingling. Would it be the same reaction, respectively, had females been preferred over males?

Why is it that being a chauvinist is considered a negative trait while being a feminist is labeled as activism? If being biased towards one gender is wrong, being biased towards the other one should also be considered wrong. I believe, in fact, that governments of nations with these gender issues should make sure that the to-be parents quickly get to know the gender of their forthcoming child and allow them make valid plans—not the sort of plans as in marrying off the females and securing jobs for the males, but just plans to make their individual lives better.

Another thing I find incomprehensible is how a mother would want a son over a daughter. Social pressure is not an acceptable answer—being a woman, if you can’t support your daughter (because, according to most societies’ norms, the son can much more easily support himself), you never had the right to be a mother. Period.