Thanks for advocating on behalf of all the precious children waiting for families.

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In answer to the burning question of why adoptive parents prefer to adopt girls (as opposed to boys), there are several possible motivating factors. For us specifically, it was simply an issue of familiarity. My husband and I both grew up with a sister, no brothers.
We have a niece, no nephews. Girls are what we know, and like most people, we initially defaulted toward the familiar. (Predictable,
no?!) After thinking it over and praying about it more, we ultimately submitted no gender preference. We would've been thrilled with either boys or girls; as it turns out, we ended up with one of each and are ecstatic.

Other adoptive parents may have grown up in the same sort of girl- heavy environments as my husband and I did, or they may already have a family full of little boys and desire a daughter. In addition, some adoptive parents tend to adopt girls because in many countries, women have limited opportunities in life compared to men: lower literacy rates, limited access to schooling, decreased life spans, unequal rights and privileges as a citizen, etc. In these instances, adopting girls may be seen as a human rights issue.

But I think the primary reason that adoptive parents request little girls more frequently is because somewhere in their brains, parents harbor the idea that girls are more submissive and somehow more moldable than boys–i.e., you have a better shot at shaping the character of an adopted girl than you do an adopted boy. I don't agree with this, and the research doesn't seem to bear this out, but still this is what many folks assume. As part of this line of thinking, parents seem to believe that should something go wrong with their adopted child, girls are less likely to take out their anger in destructive ways (sexually acting out on siblings, perpetrating physical violence on other family members, etc.) than boys are.

Also, some families who adopt from Africa in particular may not want to adopt a "black boy" and all that label can connote in our culture.
Again, this is not at all our viewpoint, nor is it the view of most adoptive families. However, I've heard it said by a few folks that they do not feel comfortable adopting a black son because they feel it would be especially difficult to raise a black boy in American culture and have him "turn out right." While I very strongly disagree with this view, it's a position some people take.

Thanks, Pam. =) I had a similar theory.

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