Where The Boys Aren't

A Sarnia-area Indian reserve has a mystery on its hands: why are twice as many girls being born there as boys?

A recent review of Aamjiwnaang First Nation birth records found only about a third of infants born between 1999 and 2003 were male.

The ratio is normally something closer to 50-50.

The Sarnia-area community is home to Canada's largest cluster of chemical, allied manufacturing and research and development facilities.

The area's known as Chemical Valley.

Resident Ada Lockridge, who helped research the study, says she was stunned by the results.

She and her two sisters have nine kids between them and there is only one boy.

The New Scientist suggests that emissions of hexachloronebenzene (HCB) into the reserve's soil might be to blame:

EVIDENCE continues to pile up that hormone-disrupting chemicals can gender-bend human babies.

Earlier this year it was reported that the sons of women exposed to phthalates during pregnancy tend to have smaller penises (New Scientist, 4 June, p 11). This was the first direct evidence that such chemicals can feminise fetuses in the womb.

If the radical feminists find out, they'll be demanding that HCB be pumped into the water supply just like flouride.

Now here's a serious environmental threat to be concerned about, because it most directly affects the continued propagation of the human race if the sex ratio gets skewed significantly past 50-50.

But major enviromentalist groups seem to have fallen silent about this issue. Perhaps because they can't find a way to blame George Bush for it, perhaps because of subtle anti-male bias amongst the left.

But a society where there are two women for every man is going to be much different from anything before it. Will it be the matriarchal utopia that feminists dream of, or will it a patriarchal polygamist paradise?