Gender and Genocide in Rwanda

UnHope20 · 2021-10-03T02:58:10+00:00

The aspect of gender in the Rwandan genocide is perhaps more extraordinarily intricate and multifaceted than in any genocide in history.

The claim is a bold one, but it can be sustained by considering the combination of factors specific to the events in Rwanda between April and July, 1994:

· the enormous stress that traditional gender roles, especially masculine ones, were under when the genocide erupted;

· the prominence of women in perpetrating the genocide (a historically unpre- cedented feature, in terms of the scale and directness of the involvement);

· the bluntness of the ge´nocidaires’ appeals to gendered expectations and aspirations, again including women as active agents of the slaughter;

· the complex evolution of the genocide—from a tradition-bound gendercide targeting predominantly adult and adolescent males, as well as young and even infant boys (with many horrifically indiscriminate massacres as well), to a chronologically progressive and culturally transgressive targeting of Tutsi women, elderly, and girl children;

· the massive gender imbalance among those Rwandans who survived the genocide, and the social, economic, cultural, and epidemiological implications of the gender-selective slaughter of males;

*and the pronounced gendercidal character of reprisals during and after the genocide by RPF forces and their allies and agents (also apparently contributing to the gender disproportion noted above). *

Perhaps only the dimension of women’s complicity is truly unique to Rwanda.

Many of the other features have been evident in other genocides of the modern and pre-modern world: the Jewish and Armenian cases, for example, have also been powerfully “gendered” from the viewpoint of both the tormented and the tormentors.

But in its powerful representation of all these characteristics, the Rwandan genocide cries out for a sustained analysis and an attempt, however preliminary, at synthesis.

Most of the following account is based on the five most significant human rights reports on the Rwanda genocide published thus far in English: Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (1999) and *Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath (1996) (both by Human Rights Watch); Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance (revised edition, 1995) and Rwanda—Not So Innocent: Women As Killers (1995) (both by the UK organization African Rights); and the Organization of African Unity report,

Title	Gender and Genocide in Rwanda
Author	UnHope20
Upvotes	13
Comments	1
Date	October 3, 2021 2:51 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Male_Studies
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/q097ck/gender_and_genocide_in_rwanda/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Male_Studies/gender-and-genocide-in-rwanda.1216172 https://theredarchive.com/post/1216172

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