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5. Is genocide gendered and how important is gender to our understanding of the phenomenon? What is the justification for rape being categorised now as a technique of genocide?
Genocide is gendered and gender is extremely important to our understanding of genocide. Connections between gender and conflict, including genocide, are significant areas of enquiry in recent times.1 Gender is defined here as a social process whereby divisions of labour, power and emotion, as well as modes of dress and identity are differentiatedbetween men and women.2 For the purposes of this essay, the United Nations definition of genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such is adopted.3 The gendered nature of genocide and the importance of gender to our understanding of gender is demonstrated by first examining the issue of rape, then the gender-selective killing of men and of women, and lastly the importance of gender to the motivations of the perpetrators of genocide. This essay will focus primarily on cases in which there is considerable consensus among scholars that genocide has occurred. 1 Geentanjali Gangoli, Engendering genocide: Gender, conflict and violence, Womens Studies International Forum, 29 (2006), p. 534; Katharine Derderian, Common Fate, Different Experiences: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19, no.1 (2005), p. 5. 2 R. Charli Carpenter, Beyond Gendercide: Incorporating Gender into Comparative Genocide Studies, in Adam Jones, ed., Gendercide and Genocide (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004) p.234 3 UN General Assembly, Prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, 9 December 1948, A/RES/260, Article II, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3b00f0873.html [accessed 1 May 2012] 1

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The issue of rape in genocide illuminates the gendered nature of genocide and the importance of gender to our understanding of genocide. One of the most significant shifts in media attention and scholarship on genocide is the recognition, particularly in the last two decades, that rape in wartime is not a simple by-product, but is often a planned and targeted policy. 4 Catherine A. MacKinnon was one of the first legal scholars to describe rape as genocidal. Rape was not a loss of control but rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is an instrument of forced exile It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others It is rape to drive a wedge through a community, to shatter a society, to destroy a people. Furthermore, the international courts have now begun to address rape as crimes of genocide. In a judgment handed down on the 2 September 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found that the rapes during the Rwandan genocide were genocidal as they were committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group namely the Tutsi.5 Examples of systematic rape include the Rwandan genocide, in which it is estimated that 90 percent of Tutsi women and girls who survived the genocide were sexually molested in some manner, principally and systematically by the Interhamwe.6 Accounts of genocidal rape include the actions of Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the National Minister of Family and Womens Affairs, who was sent to Butare to quell the revolt against the genocide campaign. 4 Robin May Schott, War rape, natality and genocide, Journal of Genocide Research 13, no. 1-2 (2011), p. 7; Doris E. Buss, Rethinking Rape as a Weapon of War, Feminist Legal Studies 17 (2009), p. 146. 5 The Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu (Trial Judgement), ICTR-96-4-T, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), 2 September 1998, [731] available at: <http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/40278fbb4.html> [accessed 1 May 2012]. 6 Patricia A. Wietsman, The Politics of Identity and Sexual Violence: A Review of Bosnia and Rwanda, Human Rights Quarterly 30 (2008), p. 573. 2

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While rounding up the women for slaughter, Nyiramasuhuko commanded the militias to be sure they raped the women before killing them. She also used rape to reward the soldiers for their killings, urging them on time after time.7 Moreover, women are overwhelmingly the victims of rape, and there is a rich body of literature on how this systematic rape is intricately tied to the symbolism of womens bodies, and gender norms and ideologies. 8 For Susan Brownmiller, rape in genocide is part of an attack against the enemy. It is a message passed between menvivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other.9 Similarly, Christopher Schiessl has argued that rape is symbolically used to dominate, humiliate and demoralize the enemy. 10 In many societies, a womans body symbolizes her lineage, and female chastity is central to family and community honour. 11 In these societies men are entrusted to protect their women, family and bloodlines. 12 By dishonoring a womans body, a perpetrator can symbolically dishonor the whole lineage. In the context of genocide, the concept of lineage is extended to the entire ethnic group and rape therefore becomes a tool of genocide for destroying the enemys honour, lineage and nation.13 Furthermore, as well as degrading the individual woman, rape 7 Prosecutor v. Nyiramasuhuko (Trial Judgment), ICTR-97-21-T International Criminal Tribunal Rwanda (ICTR), 4 March 2010, available at: <http://www.unictr.org/Portals/0/Case%5CEnglish%5CNyira%5Cdecisions%5C10030 4.pdf> [accessed 1 May 2012]. 8 Gangoli, Engendering Genocide, p. 535. 9 Susan Brownmiller, Against our will: Men, women and rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), p. 13 quoted in Buss, Rethinking Rape as a Weapon of War, p. 148. 10 Christoph Schiessl, An Element of Genocide: Rape, Total War and International Law in the Twentieth Century, Journal of Genocide Research 4, no. 2 (2002), p. 198. 11 Ibid., p. 190; Cindy S. Snyder et al, On the Battleground of Womens Bodies: Mass Rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Affilia 21 (2006), p. 190. 12 Snyder et al, On the Battleground of Womens Bodies, p. 190. 13 Ibid. 3

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makes clear that the enemy men are powerless and acts as a symbolic castration of men. 14 For these reasons, rape in genocide is often committed in front of the womans relatives and neighbours, particularly male ones. For example, the Armenian genocide included the rape of female relatives to dominate and humiliate the (male) Armenian leadership in order to dampen its will to resist. An Armenian eyewitness from Sassun reported that Early in July [1915]the female relatives were outraged in public before the very eyes of their mutilated husbands and brothers.15 Similarly, accounts by survivors of the Jewish Holocaust almost always describe the rape and torture of Jewish women and girls as a means of suppression and weapon of terror.16 Hence, in examining the issue of rape, it is clear that genocide is often gendered, and gender is extremely important to our understanding of genocide. The gendered nature of genocide and importance of gender in understanding genocide is also evident in the gender-selective killing of males, or gendercide. Indeed, Adam Jones has argued that the gender-selective mass killing of males, particularly battle-age males is so pervasive a feature of contemporary warfare, that it is possibly a definitional element.17 The killing of males as an end in itself, or as a prelude to root and branch extermination of the community is a prominent

14 Schiessl, An Element of Genocide, p. 199; Binaifer Nowrojee, Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath, Human Rights Watch (1996) p. 2. 15 Derderian, Common Fate, Different Experiences, p. 5. 16 Schiessl, An Element of Genocide, p. 199. 17 Adam Jones, Gendercide and Genocide, Journal of Genocide Research 2, no. 2 (2000), p. 189. 4

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feature in almost every genocide.18 This is exemplified in the Rwandan genocide, in which the African Rights report Death, Despair and Defiance makes clear that men were overwhelmingly targeted in the genocides earliest and more virulent stages.19 Numerous accounts of the genocide describe the selection of men, including accounts of the genocidal massacre in the parish of Mibilizi, Cyangugu prefecture, which describe the macabre favourite game of the killers, selecting Tutsi men and boys for the slaughterhouse.20 Similarly, in the Srebenica genocide during the Bosnian war, around 8000 Bosniaks were massacred, the vast majority of whom were boys and men. Numerous accounts in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia detail the deliberate separation of men and boys from the Bosniak population.21 Furthermore, most accounts of the Armenian genocide in 1915-1917 agree that there was an intentional policy aimed at the physical annihilation of men and boys,22and most men were separated and exterminated before the mass deportations.23 This gender- selective killing of males is extremely important to our understanding of the conduct of genocide. Adam Jones has argued that genocidal atrocities against males may be understood as the first phase of a genocide, as a kind of vanguard for the genocide as a whole, an initial barrier to be surmounted and threat to be removed, before the remained of the community is

18 Ibid., p. 191. 19 Adam Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, Journal of Genocide Research 4, no. 1 (2002), p. 72. 20 Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 72 21 Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic (Appeal Judgement), IT-98-33-A, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 19 April 2004, [99]-[100], available at: <http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/414810384.html> [accessed 1 May 2012] 22 Katharine Derderian, Common Fate, Different Experiences, p. 12 23 Ibid., p. 15; Jones, Gendercide and Genocide, p. 202. 5

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consigned to violent death.24 This is reflected in Rwanda, in which the Human Rights Watch has accounted that authorities first incited attacks on the most obvious targetsmen who had acknowledged or could be easily supposed to have ties with the RPFand only later insisted on the slaughtered of women, children, the elderly, and others generally regarded as apolitical.25 Similarly, in the Jewish Holocaust, Daniel Goldhagen has examined Einsatzgruppen killing operations in the Eastern front, which accounted for some two million Jewish lives before the death camps became operational. Goldhagen points out that the killing of Jewish males was used by officers to acclimate the soldiers to later mass executions of women, young children and the infirm.26 Moreover, the selection of men is based on gender norms and ideology constructed about men. The initial killing of men perhaps stems from a certain military logic that in ethnic warfare, civilians are indistinguishable from soldiers, and in many cultures men are perceived as potential combatants, or the actors in society (in contrast to passive women), and therefore the main threat to be eliminated.27 The elimination of men may also stem from the facts that in many societies, men constitute the public face or elites of a society, and therefore often the first to be eliminated.28 The Burindi genocide of 1972, for example, targeted mainly Hutus who were senior students, prominent church workers and soldiers.29 Lastly, in some cultures, there is a particular focus on men (rather than 24 Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 70 25 Human Rights Watch, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, (1999), p.488, cited in Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 70. 26 Daniel Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London : Little, Brown and Company, 1996) pp. 149-150. 27 Jones, Gendercide and Genocide, p. 191. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 6

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women) as carrying ethnicity, and therefore the first targets to be eliminated in ethnic conflict. This is evident in the Armenian genocide, in which the practice in some regions was the killing of males, and the assimilation or Islamicization of Armenian women.30 Hence, it is evident that genocide is gendered, and gender is extremely important to our understanding of gender, as evident in the gender- selective killing of males. As with males, the gender-selective killing, or gendercide of females is also an integral part of genocide. As stated above, males are often overwhelmingly targeted for death, particularly in the initial stages, of genocide. However, gender norms surrounding females are also important to our understanding of the conduct of genocides. Linked to the issue of rape, in certain historical circumstances women have been targeted en masse for combined rape and killing, or raped to death.31 Various scholars have recognized the gender norms constructed around females as mothers, or the bearers of children.32 For example, in Nazi Germany, womens bodies were explicitly recognized as serving the literal function of creating life, and the ideal womans body was that of a mother responsible for reproducing the ideal nation.33 In an ethnic conflict, women are identified as the bearers, not just of children, but also children who will perpetuate the ethnic group, and are targeted to 30 Derderian, Common Fate, Different Experiences, p. 4. 31 Jones, Gendercide and Genocide, p. 192; See also Mary Anne Warren, Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection (New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld), 1985), pp. 32-51. 32 Gangoli, Engendering genocide, pp. 534-535; Fiona de Londras, The Gendered Targeting of Women in Genocide: Using Intersectional Theory to Explore Genocidal Sexual Violence, IAGS Conference (2005), p. 10; David Newbury, Understanding Genocide, African Studies Review 41, no.1, (1998), p. 92. 33 Gangoli, Engendering genocide, p. 535. 7

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be killed as a result.34 Meredith Turshen and David Newbury have identified that during the Rwandan genocide, women of childbearing age were specifically targeted as the reproducers of society.35 For example, in the example discussed earlier, when Nyiramasuhuko, was sent to Butare to quell the revolt against the genocide campaign, women were rounded up for slaughter as breeders of future Tutsis.36 As such, it is clear that genocide is gendered, and a consideration of gender is therefore very important to understanding genocides. The gendered nature of genocide is also evident in examining the motivations of the perpetrators of genocide. There is considerable scholarship examining why people commit genocide.37 With the rare exception, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of genocide.38 Ideas of masculinity, particularly norms of men as fighters, and possessing strength and bravery, are obvious in the pressure placed on males to perpetrate genocide. Propaganda during the Rwandan war can be seen to play on these ideas of masculinity, heightening the martial sensibilities of young 34 Meredith Alison, Wartime Sexual Violence: Womens Human Rights and Questions of Masculinity, Review of International Studies 33 (2007), p. 80; de Londras, The Gendered Targeting of Women in Genocide, p. 10. 35 Newbury, Understanding Genocide, p. 92; Meredeth Turshen,The Political Economy of Rape: An Analysis of Systematic Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women During Armed Conflict in Africa in Caroline N. O. Moser, Fiona Clark eds.,Victors, Perpetrators or Actors: Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence (London; Zed Books, 2001), p. 62. 36 Prosecutor v. Nyiramasuhuko (Trial Judgment), ICTR-97-21-T International Criminal Tribunal Rwanda (ICTR), 4 March 2010. 37 See, for example, John Mueller, The Banality of Ethnic War, International Security 25, no. 1 (2000), pp. 42-70. Luke Fletcher, Turning Interahamwe: Individual and Community Choices in the Rwandan Genocide Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 1 (2007), pp. 25-48. 38 Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 65 8

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Hutu males. This is exemplified in the statements of MRND leader Leon Mugesera in his famously vitriolic speech of 1992 that: I know you are menwho do not let themselves be invaded, who refuse to be scorned. 39 Furthermore, the organization and strategy of the Rwandan genocide played on ideas of masculinity. Men who feared to participate were denounced as cowards: an official visiting one commune that was negligent in its genocidal duties asked if there were no more men there, meaning men who could deal with security problems themselves.40 Similar pressures to conform to masculine ideals are evident Christopher R. Brownings examination of the Reserve Police Battalion 101. Browning describes the reasoning of some policemen participating in the massacres of Jewish civilians was to avoid admitting one was too weak or cowardly in front of their comrades.41 Furthermore, while the circumstances may be particular to the Rwandan genocide, it is notable that various commentaries on the genocide have identified a gender crisis for young Hutu men as an extremely important factor to perpetrator motivation.42 By 1990, with Rwandas far reaching economic and social crisis, most of the options for young Hutu men were rapidly disappearing, or had gone altogether.43 Jones adds that for Rwandan males, the crisis was additionally an existential one as without land or employment, young men cannot advance in life [and] cannot marry.44 When 39 Human Rights Watch, Leave None to Tell the Story, p. 84, quoted in Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 68. 40 Human Rights Watch, Leave None to Tell the Story, p. 139, quoted in Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 68. 41 Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (London: Penguin Books, 2001) p. 72. 42 See Jones, Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, pp. 66-67; African Rights, Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, (London, African Rights, 1995), pp. 20-21. 43 Jones, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, p. 66. 44 Ibid., p. 67. 9

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the genocide erupted, the temptation for Hutu men to kill their Tutsi counterparts and seize their land, cattle, money and belonging must have been irresistible.45 According the Human Rights Watch, the genocidal killers including many young men who had hung out on the streets of Kigali or smaller commercial centres and the thousands of internally displaced men.46 Hence, it is clear the genocide is often gendered, and gender is an important consideration in examining genocide. Hence, it is evident that genocide is gendered, and gender is an important consideration in examining the phenomenon of genocide. This is demonstrated in examining the systematic use of genocidal rape. The gendered nature of genocide is also clear in exploring the gender-selective killing of males, and of females, in genocide, which is often based on our construction of what it is to be male or female. Lastly, gendered nature of genocide and the importance of considering gender is clear in examining the motivations of the perpetrators of genocide.

45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 10

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References
African Rights, Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, (London, African Rights, 1995). Alison, Meredith, Wartime Sexual Violence: Womens Human Rights and Questions of Masculinity, Review of International Studies 33 (2007), pp. 75-90. Buss, Doris E., Rethinking Rape as a Weapon of War, Feminist Legal Studies 17 (2009), pp. 145-163. R Carpenter, Charli, Beyond Gendercide: Incorporating Gender into Comparative Genocide Studies, in Adam Jones, ed., Gendercide and Genocide (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004) pp. 230-256. Londras, Fiona de, The Gendered Targetnig of Women in Genocide: Using Intersectional Theory to Explore Genocidal Sexual Violence, IAGS Conference (2005), pp. 1-12. Derderian, Katharine, Common Fate, Different Experiences: Gender- Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917, Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19, no.1 (2005), pp. 1-25.

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Fletcher, Luke, Turning Interahamwe: Individual and Community Choices in the Rwandan Genocide Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 1 (2007), pp. 25-48. Gangoli, Geentanjali, Engendering genocide: Gender, conflict and violence, Womens Studies International Forum, 29 (2006), pp. 534-538. Goldhagen, Daniel, Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London : Little, Brown and Company, 1996) Jones, Adam, Gendercide and Genocide, Journal of Genocide Research 2, no. 2 (2000), pp. 185-211. Jones, Adam, Gender and Genocide in Rwanda, Journal of Genocide Research 4, no. 1 (2002), pp. 65-94. Mueller, John, The Banality of Ethnic War, International Security 25, no. 1 (2000), pp. 42-70. Newbury, David, Understanding Genocide, African Studies Review 41, no.1, (1998), pp. 73-97. Nowrojee, Binaifer, Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath, Human Rights Watch (1996) pp. 1-52.

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Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu (Trial Judgement), ICTR-96-4- T, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), 2 September 1998, available at: <http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/40278fbb4.html> [accessed 1 May 2012] Prosecutor v. Nyiramasuhuko (Trial Judgment), ICTR-97-21-T International Criminal Tribunal Rwanda (ICTR), 4 March 2010, available at: <http://www.unictr.org/Portals/0/Case%5CEnglish%5CNyira%5Cdecisions%5C10030 4.pdf> [accessed 1 May 2012] Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic (Appeal Judgement), IT-98-33- A, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 19 April 2004, available at: <http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/414810384.html> [accessed 1 May 2012] Schiessl, Christoph, An Element of Genocide: Rape, Total War and International Law in the Twentieth Century, Journal of Genocide Research 4, no. 2 (2002), pp. 197- 210. Schott, Robin May, War rape, natality and genocide, Journal of Genocide Research 13, no. 1-2 (2011), pp. 5-21. Snyder, Cindy S. et al, On the Battleground of Womens Bodies: Mass Rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Affilia 21 (2006), pp. 184-95.

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Turshen, Meredeth, The Political Economy of Rape: An Analysis of Systematic Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women During Armed Conflict in Africa in Caroline N. O. Moser, Fiona Clark eds.,Victors, Perpetrators or Actors: Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence (London; Zed Books, 2001), pp. 55-68. Warren, Mary Anne, Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection (New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld). Wietsman, Patricia A., The Politics of Identity and Sexual Violence: A Review of Bosnia and Rwanda, Human Rights Quarterly 30 (2008), pp. 561-578. UN General Assembly, Prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, 9 December 1948, A/RES/260, Article II, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3b00f0873.html [accessed 1 May 2012]

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