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Out of Control: Women’s Rights and Overpopulation in India

Think Women’s Rights Have Nothing to do with Climate Change? Think Again.


Gooday doesn’t want any more children.


At 33, she has already given birth to eight hungry mouths in the slums of Agra, a Northern India city in the state of Uttar Pradesh (Pacheo). In labor for three days, Gooday almost lost her life during her eighth pregnancy. And yet, the child was wholly unwelcomed by her family. Why? The answer is quite simple.


Gooday’s baby was a girl.


Although Gooday had already bore one son, her mother-in-law and husband--the ‘gatekeepers’ of female reproduction--were not satisfied. Although she begged doctors to be sterilized, she had no say in the matter. If another son was demanded, Gooday would be forced to bear children until she delivered a male.


Although women have made progress in India, even becoming Prime Minister, women as a group are valued significantly less than men. This imbalance is heightened in Northern India, a part of the country with basic social security and drowning in poverty. There, women are viewed as expendable and as burdens: parents are expected to pay dowry, but daughters leave to start their own families as soon as they are married. This view of women has led to female infants to being unwanted, abandoned, or even killed--sex-selective abortion has led men to outnumber women by 32 million in India (“Voices of Concern: Geeta Rao Gupta.”).


This oppression has come about through thousands of years of societal norms and cultural traditions. In Hindu culture, “it is the son who lights the funeral pyre for the parents when they die,” according to senior UN fellow Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta; “it is the son who is thought of as the one who will support the parents when they are aged.” (“Voices of Concern: Geeta Rao Gupta.”)


The result is a culture that insists women produce one to two sons, leading to big families that increase the population--exponentially so. In Uttar Pradesh alone, the population increases by ten million every three years (“Voices of Concern: Geeta Rao Gupta.”). In India, this population increase threatens the stability of the nation as people are crammed into insufficient space --India’s 1.7 billion citizens are crammed into a space ⅓ the size of the US(“Size of India Compared to United States.”).


Now, here is where environmental science comes in. Earth is a finite resource, and there is a limit to how many humans it can hold--like the limit to how many cows one farm can support. What happens when the farm fills up? Quality of life for all decrease. It is unsurprising, therefore, that India is home to the world’s most polluted city as too many people stress an environment to its breaking point.


Overpopulation can be insidious, affecting numerous aspects of life: air quality, as millions motor vehicle belch of CO2 ; agriculture, as overworked farmland produces too little food; and water quality, as 93% of India’s sewage gets dumped untreated into waterways. Locked in a self-perpetuating spiral, overpopulation and pollution set India on a path for a grim future.


And it’s not just humans who will suffer. Countless animals including the bengal tiger are on the bridge of extinction in India (fans of Tiger King, mourn with me). The tigers, numbering fewer than 3,900 in the wild according to the World Wildlife Fund, are threatened by the use of chemical fertilizers that act like Monster Energy for the land--a quick fix to revive dying farmland, but ultimately detrimental. According to Dr. Dewaram A. Nagdeve at the International Institute for Population Science, the amount of fertilizers necessary to support India’s growing food demand will result in eutrophication of water bodies, ill health of oceans, and loss of biodiversity. Losing key predators like the tiger could lead to an ecosystem spirling rapidly out of control.


Alright, we now have the facts. Womens’ lack of autonomy is tied to increasing populations, which leads to pollution that threatens animals and people But how does that touch us in America?


For starters, instability anywhere in the world is bad for America, as humanitarian crises demand time and money, hot commodities in the age of PPE and ventilators. Not only that, but countless American businesses like Pepsico and Gillette have major operations in India, so a population crisis count results in falling stock prices--which economists have seen enough of in the past eight months to last a lifetime. Another reason to care? Overpopulation leads to deep inequality and human suffering. And it is preventable.



“You can trigger social and cultural change,” says Dr. Rao Gupta, “by giving women increased economic opportunities.” In fact, in her research, Gupta found that women who have more control over their bodies tend to prefer smaller families--Indian fertility rates would likely plummet with women in control.

This correlation between female education and decreased population growth has proven true time and time again; according to a 2016 World Bank report, South Asian female literacy rate increased from 45.5% in 2000 to 57.0% in 2010, while total fertility rate (number of children per woman) dropped from 6.0 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2014.


Despite these encouraging prospects, most of us will not be in a position to lead projects to increase female literacy rates in India. But there are more creative ways to combat global inequality.



Fellow students: as we continue our education and begin careers, search for connections between seemingly unrelated issues, such as environmental science and women’s rights. Few problems exist in a vacuum; more likely, your field can have impacts far beyond its immediate application. Physicists can apply laws of order and reason to philosophy; cartoonists can make complicated science accessible for all. In looking beyond our sphere of interest, we discover surprising connections that store untold--and largely untapped--power.


Besides interdisciplinary innovation, our greatest tool for combating climate change is connection. Open dialogue with our fellow people, especially those who come from different countries, is vital to expanding our own unde


rstanding of the world. Also, we must understand that gender discrimination has been a powerful river in the mountain of India, carving a path worn by thousands of generations. In America, a gender norm as insignificant as women being expected to shave their armpits would be incredibly difficult to change--imagine the struggle challenge to the very foundation of a society.



In our pursuit of freedom for women, we cannot assume the false mask of American superiority. There are countless cultural aspects that the Indians got right that Americans missed the mark on, such as yoga, tea, and meditation. The goal of this article is simply to spread awareness of a cultural divide that still exists in the world today and to combat our Western pretence of global gender equality. Awareness can lead to conversations with people from different cultures, ties that broader the cultural understanding of both parties.


Gooday, the woman in the beginning of this story, will probably never read this article, will never know how much her life has impacted others. And yet, you now know her story—one step closer to never having to read an article like this again.


Even though I know she will never read it, I’d like to think something in her can sense the winds of change stirring in her own country—and halfway around the world. Somewhere in Northern India, I like to imagine Gooday gazing at her daughter, and smiling.




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December 6, 2020


The Conscious Clipper is written by Rose Hansen




Charitable Organization supporting women’s education in India: https://www.oxfamindia.org/blog/five-charities-working-women






Works Cited


Pacheo, Laura. “Escaping the Trap.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 24 Sept. 2003,

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/prod-pacheco.html.

“Size of India Compared to United States.” My Life Elsewhere,

www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/india/united-states.

“Voices of Concern: Geeta Rao Gupta.” Nova, Public Broadcasting Service,



www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/voic-raog.html.




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