Emily's Worldview

So I’ve been having this ongoing conversation with different people about the gender ratio in Kenya. On several occasions, I have been informed that there are four women for every man in Kenya. This has been repeated to me by uneducated and educated Kenyans and even by one American expatriate. I have heard it expressed as a percent, I have heard supporting information (i.e. that 75% of newborns are female) and everyone I have talked to insists that it is true, though no one can explain why it would be. I am willing to buy that men die more quickly here of HIV and from violence and accidents, and I think it might even be possible that women outnumber men, particularly in the older age brackets. But if an entire nation were so dramatically skewed, I promise you, the world would be hearing about it. If girls were being born three times more frequently than boys, we would know about it. As it is, in Kisumu town, men are everywhere, most of them zipping around or lounging on bicycle taxis, offering to take you anywhere in town for 15 cents.

Having this conversation, though, and appreciating the persistence of that particular statistic has made me wonder about some of the myths we pass around in America. That people of different races all have equal opportunities might be one of them, that being thin denotes being healthy, that children raised in non-nuclear families are inherently worse off, that our government is an expression of the will of the people. I’m sure there are others—the lies that stick in peoples minds and mouths despite all evidence that contradicts them.