International
国际

Prizing Girls: Like Father, like daughter
珍惜女儿：有其父必有其女

How South Korea learnt to love baby girls.
韩国是怎么学会爱女婴的。

“I cried when I heard,” writes one blogger, recalling the moment she learned that her baby was a boy.
一个博主回忆当她知道她怀的是个男孩儿的时候，写道:“当我听到这个消息的时候我哭了”。

Those were bitter tears.
这是苦涩的泪水。

The woman was “so envious” of a mother who had just given birth to a daughter.
这个妈妈嫉妒那些刚刚生了女儿的母亲。

She was not at all unusual.
这并不是特例。

South Koreans of reproductive age now prefer girls to boys.
现在韩国生育年龄阶段的人们喜欢女孩多过于男孩。

They have created a new term, “ddalbabo”—“daughter crazy”—for men who go loopy over their female offspring.
他们创造了一个新词，"ddalbabo"——女儿狂——那些疯狂喜欢女儿的父亲们。

Until the early 20th century failure to bear a son was grounds for divorce.
直到20世纪初，未能生育男丁还是离婚的理由之一。

Koreans greatly preferred boys, who could not only support their parents financially but also carry out ancestral rites.
朝鲜民族非常偏爱男孩，男丁不但可以经济上赡养父母，还能延续先祖的宗法。

When ultrasound technology became widespread in the 1980s, many South Koreans used it to detect female fetuses and then have them aborted.
当超声波技术在20世纪八十年代广泛应用时，许多韩国家庭借此检查胎儿的性别，打掉女孩。

Sex ratios became skewed.
因此性别比率出现了倾斜。

In 1992 twice as many fourth babies were boys as were girls.
1992年的时候，男孩是女孩的两到四倍之多。

In response to these trends the South Korean government made it illegal for doctors to reveal the sex of a fetus.
韩国政府为了应对这些趋势，将医生向准父母告知胎儿性别列为非法行为。

It produced pro-girl slogans: “There is no envy for ten sons when you have one well-raised daughter.”
并提出了支持女孩的口号：“养好一个女儿，胜过十个男孩”。

That may have helped, but not as much as economic change.
那或许有些帮助，却不如经济变化的作用大。

Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, many women took part-time jobs to supplement the family income.
随着1997年亚洲金融危机的到来，许多妇女通过做兼职工作来补贴家用。

Parents noticed, and began to invest more heavily in educating girls.
父母们都意识到了，并且加大对女孩们在教育方面的投资。

In 2015 three-quarters of South Korean female secondary-schoolers went to university, compared with two-thirds of their male peers.
到2015年，已经有四分之三的中学女生进入大学深造，相比较而言中学男生大学升学率是三分之二。

Aborting girls simply because they are girls has become so unthinkable that the law has been relaxed.
仅仅因为怀的是女孩而堕胎，已经变得无法想象，因此上述法律也被放宽了。

Since 2009 expectant parents have been allowed to know the sex of their baby after 32 weeks’ gestation.
自2009年，准父母在怀孕32周后可以知道他们孩子的性别。

Many will have found out before, from doctors who trust that parents’ attitudes have changed.
许多准父母也能更早的从医生那里得知，这些医生相信父母们的观点已经改变。