These children weren't the gender their parents hoped for — and they were resented for it
Some women say they feel like a constant reminder of what their parents wanted but didn't get. (ABC News: Cordelia Brown)
Amara's mother refused to believe she had "any real worth" unless she got married.
"My ambition was never a priority to her, only marriage," the 30-year-old from Sydney, who asked to use a pseudonym, told the ABC.
Amara, who is Indian Australian, described her relationship with her mother as "estranged".
The reason? Her mother was the target of intense "gender disappointment" — and so was Amara.
Gender disappointment is when a child’s biological sex doesn’t match up with what the parents hoped for, and can be a source of deep shame.
While sex is biologically determined and gender a social construct, the terms are often used interchangeably.
For some, deeply-held cultural assumptions about the roles of boys and girls can intensify those feelings of disappointment, especially in contexts where it has been traditionally more beneficial economically to have a boy.
Amara said her mother always felt inferior to men growing up in India, and "she projected those shortcomings onto me".
That never changed, even though Amara excelled academically and socially compared to her brother.
"My brother was expected to focus on his career and take care of our mum when she got older," she said.
"Simply because he was born a male, and I wasn't."
What is gender disappointment?
Gender disappointment is "an intense sadness that a parent can feel when their wish to have a child of a certain sex isn't realised", according to Deakin University senior lecturer in health ethics Tamara Browne.
One of the most persistent gender issues in many societies is the preference for a son, according to the WHO and UN. (ABC News: Cordelia Brown)
Dr Browne said it was caused by parents feeling they could not enjoy the same activities and relationships with daughters as was possible with sons.
"There is a plethora of evidence showing how our society creates and reinforces gender differences," she said.
In 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for an end to the preference for having sons.
"Son preference perpetuates discrimination and violations of women's rights," the WHO said in a statement.
However, in June 2023, a United Nations report revealed bias against women remained virtually the same as it was a decade prior.
Why does gender disappointment happen?
According to a report by the Washington-based International Center for Research on Women, the reasons sons are preferred over daughters in India are multifaceted.
They include that parents expect sons — but not daughters — to provide financial and emotional care, especially in their old age, and that sons are believed to add to family wealth and property.
Amara says she is no longer in contact with her mother. (ABC News: Cordelia Brown)
Daughters are married away to other households and seen as draining resources through dowries, while sons are understood to continue the family lineage.
Sons also perform important religious roles and "defend or exercise the family’s power" but daughters supposedly have to be defended and protected, creating a perceived burden on the household.
Amara said families have "a long way to go when it comes to believing and treating daughters equally".
"We are also not used to seeing other South Asian women in positions of power or pursuing non-traditional paths, so it's not as normalised," she said.
Monash University Malaysia professor of development economics Niaz Asadullah agreed that some cultures favoured sons because of patriarchal traditions.
"These range from the [perceived] low economic value of women, female illiteracy, cultural traditions to patrilineal social structures," he said.
Dr Browne from Deakin said gender disappointment was a predictable result of these "unfounded" views about gender "which the majority of society still holds and reinforces".
Betty Lin, 33, grew up in a small village in the Chaoshan region of China which has among the highest imbalances in the ratio of males and females in the world.
China's infamous one-child policy has been blamed for exacerbating the gender imbalance.
Betty is the oldest child in the family, followed by two sisters and two brothers.
"My parents don't say they prefer boys explicitly, but it's very obvious," she said.
When Betty's sisters were born her parents were so disappointed they wanted to give them to couples who couldn't have children, except her grandmother stopped them from doing so.
Her parents would only buy milk for her brothers when they were young, not her sisters, Betty said.
"My family was quite poor. They would always prioritise my brothers over me and my sisters for any food or things," she said.
"Celebrations would only be held for the birth of boys, but not for girls," she said.
Amara and Betty said they have felt unworthy of being loved by their parents. (ABC News: Cordelia Brown)
In some Chinese regions, the bloodline passes through the male line while daughters join their husbands' families.
"In the culture of this region, it's a disastrous thing if a family doesn't have a boy … it's considered an end of the bloodline," Betty said.
"In the village, they used to distribute land according to the number of boys in a family. This means you can't own land if you don't have males in the household."
The lasting negative effects
Betty said growing up in this type of environment not only made her feel insecure, it made her wish she was born a male.
"There is a persistent feeling that I'm not worthy enough to be loved," she said.
That frustration and sadness are felt by Amara too.
"My worst fear isn't losing money or my livelihood, it's my mother proving she was right about me — that I don't have what it takes," she said.
But these experiences also fuelled something else deep inside these women — determination.
"This whole experience made me realise the importance of independence very early," Betty said.
"I know I can only rely on myself.
"I'm hopeful our daughters' generation will be better as we're now able to have difficult conversations about this through social media," Amara said.
Dr Browne agreed and said society was becoming more aware of how harmful gender stereotypes are.
"If society relinquished gender essentialist beliefs, parents may then also relinquish the assumption that their parenting experience will be vastly different based on their child's sex," she said.