It is not all men's fault.

The state of Haryana has been in the news lately for a large number of rape cases. There have been 19 cases of rape in the last one month and 2011 saw 725 cases, at a rate of 60 a month. Even with these terrible statistics Haryana cannot boast of being the leader in India. It is merely tenth in the league table of rapes with the north eastern states of Mizoram, Tripura and Assam heading the table. Haryana came into the limelight after the father of a 16 year old dalit girl committed suicide when he learnt that his daughter had been gang raped. Tribal or khap leaders of Haryana say that the only solution is to lower the age for marriage to 16 years for girls, or even lower, from the official age of 18 years. This will only legitimise child marriage, interfere with education of girls and ruin the health of women as they are forced to bear children before their bodies are ready. A Taliban solution if ever there was one. Feminists are quick to blame men for all the problems that women have to suffer. They say that men are beasts to force rape on women and many a politician and police officer has got into serious trouble for suggesting that women should not dress in a " provocative " manner. They say that rape is an abominable crime and how a woman dresses should not be an excuse to condone it. Absolutely. Yet these feminists stay silent when the same people suggest that women should not wear gold ornaments because that will invite armed robbery. Surely armed robbery is just as serious a crime and there is no excuse for it. Yet women are wearing artificial ornaments quite happily ever since the price of gold reached record levels. Muddled thinking. Although rape is a male crime and should be severely punished women do bear some responsibility. The ratio of girls to boys has been falling all over India as women choose to abort female fetuses in preference for boys. Normally about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Since there is a higher mortality among boys the ratio becomes equal at the age of 30 years and women far outnumber men in old age. In parts of Haryana the ratio is less than 800 girls for 1000 boys. Feminists are quick to blame men for this saying that in a patriarchal society women have no control over their bodies. This is not true at all. Even educated and high earning women show a marked preference for boys. Partly this maybe because there is a social stigma on women for not producing male children. This is completely perverse. A woman has 46XX chromosomes and can donate only an X to each of her eggs. A man, on the other hand, has 46XY chromosomes and therefore donates an X or a Y to each sperm. Hence only the father can choose the gender of his offspring and, biologically, women have no choice at all. If feminists spent some time and effort teaching everyone this basic truth we may have more girls in time. Instead feminists prefer to scream abuse at men. Probably because this gets their pictures on TV. Women do have some responsibility in preventing rape after all.