In a phone call, I overhear my mother congratulating my aunt for safely delivering a baby boy. “You must have done something great in the past which is why you have been blessed with a son,” she says as I cringe. If I had contested her logic and had told her it did not matter what gender the baby was, it would have been the 199th time her and I would have debated the topic. There was no changing her mind—not by me anyway. No matter which level of society you exist in, you probably don’t even have to look beyond your own household to see how boys and girls are treated and socialised differently and unequally.

 

Even today a son is preferred to a daughter by most parents. Nepali society was conceived of and remains as a deeply patriarchal system. Sons are expected to inherit and continue the family line while daughters are expected to dutifully take up another home and another name. The logic is such that sons along with their wives and progeny will be there to take care of you when you are old and infirm while daughters are expected to simply move away. In reality though, this logic barely ever holds up.