Gender and Genocide Flashcards
Helene Sinnreich (2008), rape of Jewish women
rejects the myth that laws forbidding Rassenschande would prevent the rape of Jewish women and argues that genocidal conditions provided fertile soil for such abuses.
Helene Sinnreich (2008), rape in genocide
rape occurs during genocide not only as a systematic means of attack but also because it places its victims in physically vulnerable positions with limited or non-existent access to redress. Although during the Holocaust the organised rape of Jewish women was not part of official German genocidal policy, the conditions that exposed women to various abuses put them at risk of being raped by a wide range of individuals including perpetrators, bystanders, and fellow victims.
Laws for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour
September 1935
not only prohibited marriage between Jews and ‘subjects of the state of Germany or related blood’ but also explicitly forbade extramarital relations. Punishment for either offence was hard labour
HOWEVER
German soldiers who engaged in consensual - or even non-consensual - sexual relations with non-German women were rarely reprimanded
Helene Sinnreich (2008), dehumanisation and rape
the notion that dehumanising Nazi propaganda would create a barrier to rape contradicts numerous theorists who argue that rather than deter rape, the rendering of a victim as sub-human enables a perpetrator.
Catherine Derderian - rape and Turks
Helene Sinnreich (2008)
rape helped the Turks dehumanise the Armenians.
Conversely, the dehumanisation of the Armenians made it easier for the Turks to rape them.
Helene Sinnreich (2008), in what context should we understand the rape of Jewish women
one should understand the rape of Jewish women within the context of German men perpetrating violence against Jewish women rather than German men and Jewish women engaging in sexual relations
Copelon - war and violence
Helene Sinnreich (2008)
‘War tends to intensify the brutality, repetitiveness, public spectacle, and likelihood of rape. War diminishes sensitivity to human suffering and intensifies men’s sense of entitlement, superiority, avidity, and social license to rape.’
Christoph Schiessl, why do soldiers rape during warfare
Helene Sinnreich (2008)
‘domination and demoralization’
‘in wartime the distinction between killing and other forms of violence gets easily lost. A group power develops which has no comparison in civilian life, enlarging the power of men alone.’
Reasons why historians have failed to explore rape of Jewish women
Helene Sinnreich (2008)
gender bias in Holocaust scholarship
significant work on the particulars of women’s experience during the Holocaust did not appear until the mid and late 1990s
mistaken belief in the idea that Germans implemented their genocidal policies with unwavering ideological purity has caused many to turn a blind eye to numerous sources, German and Jewish, which testify to the realities of Jewish experiences during the war.
Helene Sinnreich (2008), rape as collective genocidal experience
rape as an experience of Holocaust victims was not just a personal experience because Jewish women were especially vulnerable precisely because of their Jewish identity
Helene Sinnreich (2008), significance of USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive
- Unlike in previous interview projects, interviewees were specifically asked whether or not they had witnessed sexual abuse
- Since they did not begin collecting material until the 1990s, enough time had passed for women to be forthright about their experiences
Jakub Poznanski, Diary from the Lodz Ghetto
wrote of the rape of a Jewish girl by Hans Biebow; the head of the German Ghetto Administration, in a diary entry dated 2 September 1944
One evening when he was drunk, he grabbed her in the hallway, dragged her into his office, and tried to rape her. The girl tried to defend herself and started screaming. It was then that ‘the master of life and death’ shot her in the eye
Helene Sinnreich (2008), Bina W
Bina W was among those few who were left in the Lodz Ghetto after the final liquidation to clean up the ghetto area. She was roomed in a women’s barrack. One night, Hans Biebow dragged her from her bed. Together these separate reports of Biebow as a rapist lends credibility to each of the survivor’s stories
Helene Sinnreich (2008), Ana C’s testimony
the Germans took Jewish women from the Lodz Ghetto for forced prostitution
she herself was selected for this duty
Helene Sinnreich (2008), brothels
Early in his regime, Hitler positioned himself and the Nazi party as being opposed to prostitution
by 1936, the Military Supreme Command declared that the construction of military brothels “an urgent necessity”
Regulations against Jewish women serving in brothels were made explicit in 1939 when the brothels were first set up but had to be reiterated in another order in March of 1942 suggesting the prohibition was not being observed
Helene Sinnreich (2008), affidavit signed in New York City on 14 January 1940
Dr. Henryk Szoszkies, a former member of the Executive of the Warsaw Jewish Community Council testified that, to my own knowledge proposals were made by Nazi officials to the Jewish Community Council to organize houses of prostitution in Nazi-occupied towns, and that Jewish girls be provided for use of the army.
Helene Sinnreich (2008), other testimonies suggesting systematic sexual exploitation of Jewish women
in her memoir I was There, Frances Penney claims that such a list of women was created in the Vilna Ghetto.
Another survivor from Lithuania testified that very attractive women were rounded up and selected for ‘labour’ in the Kaunas ghetto.
A.A. Ruzkensky testified in 1941 that Jewish girls were taken from the streets of Lvov and put into a brothel and shot a few days later
Helene Sinnreich (2008), sexual exploitation in concentration camps - Skarżysko-Kamienna
The leadership of Skarżysko-Kamienna engaged regularly in the rape of the Jewish prisoner population
Survivors testified that numerous German officers took part in the rape of Jewish women, with more than one testimony specifically naming Kurt Krause, Otto Eisenschmidt, and SA member Fritz Bartenschlager
Sexual abuse pervasive
Felicja Karay described it as a place where ‘the “rites of manhood” were expressed in orgies of drunkenness and gang rapes of Jewish girls
Helene Sinnreich (2008), necrophilia and power
numerous testimonies from a variety of camps which discuss women being sexually violated after death. As a way of expressing power over a corpse, this act of necrophilia further desecrated and dehumanised both the deceased and living witnesses
Helene Sinnreich (2008), Lya C’s testimony of Haidari concentration camp, Greece
every morning the commandant would select the seven most attractive female prisoners - the same seven women. One day, one of the women was sick and he approached Lya. Lya was 14 - she thought the girls were cleaning the rooms; instead she was raped by a young German
Sofsky, The Order of Terror
Helene Sinnreich (2008)
the ‘condition of omnipresent murder attracts and breeds sadists’
Helene Sinnreich (2008), sexual exploitation in concentration camps - Dachau
One survivor, Erica B., testified that she was arrested for Rassenschande and incarcerated in Dachau. The guards repeatedly raped her in her cell: ‘There was sex from morning to night and there was not anything you could do about it … Two or three would come in and you had to lie on the floor and that was it.’
Emil G. reported that while he was in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Germans arranged a ‘show’ where they took 20 Jewish women prisoners and raped them in front of one of the labour groups. Emil reported that the male prisoners were supposed to stand and applaud.
Helene Sinnreich (2008), sexual exploitation not permitted in all concentration camps
Shari B. was a 14 year old girl in Augsburg when a German man more than twice her age grabbed her underdeveloped breasts. She felt helpless to prevent his assault and pleaded with him to stop but he did not let go until he saw a female guard coming
Ulrich Herbert in his introduction to National Socialist Extermination Policies
Helene Sinnreich (2008)
one of the weaknesses of German histories of the Holocaust has been the focus on the perpetrators’ perspective
Weitsman (2008), the unique plight of babies born as a result of govt-orchestrated mass rape
The cloud of shame that nearly always follows these children throughout their lives undermines their human rights in critical ways.
Weitsman (2008), rape’s functions as a tactic in genocide
- intimidates
- degrades
- humiliates
- tortures
Weitsman (2008), under what circumstances is rape a ‘particularly potent form of torture’?
in patriarchal societies in which a woman’s standing derives from her relationship to the men in her family: her brothers, father, husband, and sons
In many cases, if a woman is unmarried, her worth derives from her status as a virgin. Once raped, society no longer deems her marriageable or socially viable
shame of victimization is far worse than the perpetration of the crime.
These assumptions must already exist to support a policy of mass rape. If they do not, this policy loses its coercive power and may not be as successful in driving families apart or securing ethnic cleansing
The maternal contribution to identity must be completely assumed away for an ethnic group to embark on a policy of forced impregnation or forced maternity in order to promote “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.” Otherwise, the rape campaign would be viewed as propagating more of the enemy
Weitsman (2008), Nazi ideology and prohibition of rape
The Nazis viewed racial purity as the absence of any non-Aryan blood, whether maternally or paternally derived. Sexual intercourse between “racially impure” individuals and Aryans was prohibited because it would “taint” the offspring
Weitsman (2008), Serbian militias and rape
Serbian militias, in contrast, sought to impregnate Bosnian Muslim women so that they would bear “Serbian” children. In this case, identity was viewed as exclusively paternally derived.
Weitsman (2008), result of implementation of policies of forced impregnation or forced maternity
serves to ‘occupy the womb’ of the women in question
Weitsman (2008), where rape does NOT represent ethnic cleansing or genocide
Policies of mass rape designed to humiliate and degrade a population to such an extent that people leave en masse, thereby advancing the goal of ethnic cleans ing, must be distinguished from rape with the intent of forcing women to bear children. One cannot view these policies in the same way:
to do so is tantamount to accepting the view of identity that rapists perpetuate that it is paternally derived?and to denying the cultural and genetic connection between mother and child
Weitsman (2008), identity during wartime
During wartime, questions of identity become outlined in sharp relief. Under conditions of threat, persecuted groups, or any social group, have a heightened sense of self. These groups will draw together, become more cohesive, and validate their identity.
As we construct our enemies?or our “others”?our ethnicities, races, citizenships, and religions all become tools of exclusion
Weitsman (2008), how are ‘war children’ often viewed
purely as “the other,” despite their birth mothers’ identities and despite the fact that members of their mothers’ ethnic groups usually raise them
Once born, the identity of the war babies is inextricably linked to their rapist fathers.
Weitsman (2008), children born of rape in former Yugoslavia
Bosnia - they are called “a generation of children of hate.”
Weitsman (2008), children born of rape in Rwanda
known as “children of bad memories,” “children of hate,” and “unwanted children.”
Weitsman (2008), Bosnia, rape camps
e.g. Foca, where the Serbian policies of mass rape, forced impregnation, and forced maternity were implemented
Oosterman, a member of the prosecution investigation team, testified against Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic in July 1996. “The soldiers told often that they were forced to do it. They did not say who forced them to do it, but they were ordered do it.” Her testimony continued, “They wanted to make Serb or Chetnik babies. The pattern was, yes, all over the same.”
narratives told by hundreds of women held at camps around Bosnia suggest that women were raped repeatedly and, once impregnated, held until abortion was no longer an option.
Weitsman (2008), survivor at Doboj camp
They said that each woman had to serve at least ten men a day. . . . God, what horrible things they did. They just came in and humiliated us, raped us, and later they told you, “Come on now, if you could have Ustasha babies, then you can have a Chetnik baby, too.” . . . Women who got pregnant, they had to stay there for seven or eight months so they could give birth to a Serbian kid. They had their gynecologists there to examine the women. The pregnant ones were separated off from us and had special privileges; they got meals, they were better off, they were protected. Only when a woman’s in her seventh month, when she can’t do anything about it anymore, then she’s released.
They beat the women who didn’t get pregnant, especially the younger women; they were supposed to confess what contraceptives they were using
Weitsman (2008), biology and identity
if biology is privileged in this conception of identity, a socially constructed idea of biology is what prevails. This is especially noteworthy in the Bosnian case, considering the minimal racial or biological differences between the Bosnian Muslims and Serbians: both were Slavs
Weitsman (2008), Rwandan genocide and gender
Much of the propaganda leading up to the killing was directed at Tutsi women, especially in regards to their supposed promiscuity and their feelings of superiority toward Hutu men, who were considered unattractive and lower class.
As a consequence, much of the violence was directed at women
Weitsman (2008), One Tutsi woman, who was taken by the Interahamwe (Hutu militias) to observe the mass slaughter and be the lone survivor to tell the tale to God of the Tutsis’ demise…
witnessed:
- the spearing of a baby as it emerged from its mother’s body
- a multitude of rapes with foreign objects, such as machetes and spears, and the burning of women’s pubic hair afterwards
- Pregnant women were sliced open and the fetuses removed from their bodies
Weitsman (2008), scale of mass rape, Rwandan genocide
Mass rape was a critical part of the Rwandan genocide. 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 Interahamwe. According to one study, Butare province alone has more than 30,000 rape survivors
Weitsman (2008),
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the National Minister of Family and Women’s Affairs
was sent to her hometown to quell Butare’s revolt against the geno cide campaign. 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
woman survivor, for example, was taken as a sex slave by her neighbors, who tortured her nightly under the conditions that prevailed during Nyiramasuhuko’s supervision. This survivor “remembered two things most of all: the stamens from the banana trees they used to violate her, leaving her body mutilated, and the single sentence one of the men used: ‘We’re going to kill all the Tutsis, and one day Hutu children will have to ask what did a Tutsi child look like.’”
Weitsman (2008), something more than genocide in Rwanda…
The torture and mass rape that were a part of the atrocities went beyond mere instrumental killing. It also meant that new children came into the world in the wake of the disaster - possibly more than 10,000 babies were born as a consequence of these rapes.
systematic rape that took place during the widespread killing in Rwanda was undertaken with the express purpose of degrading, humiliating, punishing, and torturing Tutsi women
systematic rape that took place during the widespread killing in Rwanda was undertaken with the express purpose of degrading, humiliating, punishing, and torturing Tutsi women
Weitsman (2008), Witness GEP, testimony of massacre supervised by Kamuhanda
witness later learned that the women and girls were taken to a camp where the attackers raped and killed all but one of them.61 Assailants sometimes mutilated women in the course of a rape or before killing them. They cut off breasts, punctured the vagina with spears, arrows, or pointed sticks, or cut off or disfigured body parts that looked particularly “Tutsi,” such as long fingers or thin noses
Weitsman (2008), key role of gender and ethnicity in mass rape of Tutsi women
most of the survivors described how their assailants remarked on their ethnicity before, during, or after the rape. The remarks included: “We want to see how sweet Tutsi women are,”
“You Tutsi women think that you are too good for us,”
One rape survivor described how, after being raped, her assailant said, “Now the Hutu have won. You Tutsi, we are going to exterminate you.” He then took her inside, put her on a bed, and held one leg open, while another held her other leg. “He called everyone who was outside and said, ‘you come and see how Tutsikazi are on the inside.’ Then he cut out the inside of my vagina.
One Rwandan aide worker, responding to a question about the reasons for the mass rape, said, “Hutu men wanted to know Tutsi women, to have sex with them. Tutsi women were supposed to be special sexually.”
Weitsman (2008), The identity politics underpinning the mass rape in Rwanda derived from two principal sources:
- the view of Tutsi women as sexual objects requiring subjugation
- the patriarchal structure of society
Weitsman (2008), Rwandan govt - rape as a tool. HIV
Instead of using rape as a mechanism to propa gate more Hutus, it used rape as a mechanism to try to take life. Nearly 70 percent of the women raped contracted HIV. Rwandan President Paul Kagame said, “We knew that the government was bringing AIDS patients out of the hospitals specifically to form battalions of rapists.”
Weitsman (2008), key difference between organisation of mass rapes in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia
In Rwanda, rape was a tool used to destroy Tutsi women; it was not undertaken with the express purpose of impregnating them
Weitsman (2008), stigma attached to the 10,000 or so Rwandan babies born of genocide
Many of the children were given names, such as “little killers,” “child of hate,” “the intruder,” “I am at a loss”
Infanticide rates were extremely high, and many mothers abandoned their children at birth or neglected them after birth, allowing them to die.
In the words of one rape victim: “When people kill your family and then rape you, you cannot love the child”
Weitsman (2008), significance of identity construction in policies of sexual reproduction and violation during wartime
In cases in which identity derives from both maternal and paternal lines, sexual reproduction of the enemy will be prohibited. When identity is paternally given, and women are represented
as passive bystanders in imparting identity, policies of forced impregnation and maternity may result during wartime.
Shanker (2007), global dismissal of significance of rape
Worldwide view that rape unavoidable part of the battlefield caused initial stories from Bosnia to be viewed as unremarkable by citizens in the West and discounted by politicians in the West
Not until victims like Mirsada came forward and foreign correspondents confirmed the archipelago of sex-enslavement camps and uncovered a program of systematic mass rape that the world took notice
Shanker (2007), criminalisation of wartime rape
Rape considered war crime for centuries
during American Civil War, Union Army operated under a general order perpd by Francis Lieber and signed by Pres Lincoln in 1863 that made rape a capital offense
0th C, rape included - in increasingly explicit terms - in various treaties regulating the conduct of war, starting with Article 46 of the regulations annexed to the 1907 Hague Convention
Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 - ‘women shall be protected against any attack on their honour, in partic against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault.’
rape referred to as crime against honour/ dignity, not crime of violence
Civilians in noninternational conflicts are protected by Article 3 common to the 4 Geneva Conventions of 1949
Clear that rape and other forms of sexual violence are also war crime when committed against men
rape can be prosecuted as a war crime as a grave breach under A147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as a violation of CA3, and as a violation of the laws or customs of war.
Rape now indisputably regarded as a serious crime of war, crime against humanity and instrument of genocide
ICC statute, adopted July 17, 1998:
- Jurisdiction to prosecute rape, enforced prostitution, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity
- In war or peace if of widespread or systematic nature
Shanker (2007), Tadic, Bosnian Serb, convicted by ICTY of violating CA3…
for role in the incident during which one detainee at Omarska was forced to bite off the testicle of another
Shanker (2007), ICTY conviction - Furundzija
convicted of torture by means of rape - colleague orally, vaginally and anally raped a Bosnian Muslim woman while F verbally interrogated her
Tribunal carefully chose gender-neutral terms in defining the elements of rape committed against ‘the victim,’ whether man or woman
Shanker (2007), Most groundbreaking decision on gender-related crimes
Rwanda tribunal - Jean-Paul Akayesu convicted of rape as crime against humanity and as instrument of genocide in Rwanda
Rodrigue (2007), June 1996 ICTY indictment vs 8 Bosnian Serb soldiers for enslavement and rape of Muslim women in eastern Bosnian town of Foca during 1992 and 1993 - Significance of this…
First sexual slavery prosecution in any international criminal proceeding
enslaved a 15 yr old girl
Multiple witnesses, interviewed separately, described ‘rape camps’ throughout Bosnian Serb-controlled territory, as well as a far smaller number of camps run by Croatian and Bosnian govt forces
Stiglmayer (2007), Systimatic rape and international law
No specific crime of ‘systematic rape’ under international law
However, proving that rape is widespread or systematic is important for establishing a crime against humanity
Necessary to prove not that rape was widespread or systematic, but that the attack was widespread or systematic, and rape was one of the acts that formed part of the attack
Systematic character of certain rapes may also help establish the stringent intent requirement for the charge of genocide
Stiglmayer (2007), Rwanda Tribunal, Akayesu case
if done w intent to destroy a protected group in whole or in part, rape and sexual violence constitute genocide in the same way as any other act - Akayesu had systematically targeted Tutsi women to contrib to the destruction of the Tutsi group as a whole - Sexual violence was step in the process of destruction of the Tutsi group - destruction of the spirit, of the will to live, and of life itself
Sept 2, 1998 - Akayesu was convicted of rape as a crime against humanity and as part of the genocide
Sharlach (2000), flaw in 1948 genocide convention
does not explicitly state that sexual violence is a crime of genocide
Convention should be expanded to include mass rape, regardless of whether the victims are raped on the basis of racial/ethnic, national, or religious identity
Intent to destroy people on the basis of sex should, in my analysis, merit the same status under international law as the intent to destroy people on the basis of ethnicity, nation, and religion
Mass rape during ethnic conflict results in mass trauma and as such is a form of destruction of an ethnic group
(^doesn’t this weaken her argument? Intent is not to destroy ‘women’ as a whole, but to target females of an ethnic/ religious group in a particular way as means to eliminate that group)
could be argued that mass rape constitutes genocide regardless of whether the rapists targeted women on the basis of religious, national, or ethnic affiliation
Widespread crimes against men and women on the basis of ethnic, religious, or national affliation are known as genocide, and as such under international law are a more grave matter than widespread crimes against women on the basis of sex
Sharlach (2000), to whom does rape as genocide occur?
to ethnic groups that strongly stigmatize rape survivors rather than rapists. In such communities, women in their roles as mothers of the nation and as transmitters of culture symbolize the honor of the ethnic group. When a woman’s honor is tarnished through rape, the ethnic group is also dishonored. To restore its honor, the ethnic group may ostracize or expel the raped girl or woman.
Sharlach (2000), ‘the second rape’
becoming a pariah in one’s own society and even one’s own family.
Sharlach (2000), why is it important to recognise rape as a form of genocide?
- perceptions linger that rape is a husband’s property damage
- awareness of the extent to which sexual violence is used as genocide may alert those who work with female survivors to listen for clues that a woman or girl has been sexually violated and provide treatment accordingly
- analysis of genocide that ignores the sexual forms that affect women and girls also ignores the full extent of the humiliation of the ethnic group through the rape of its women
Sharlach (2000), UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, details the common psychological aftermath of rape in Rwanda:
trauma; sexual apathy or promiscuity; substance abuse; depression; psychosomatic ailments; anger; loss of sense of womanhood; and confusion about one’s identity
Sharlach (2000), gender-specific effects of genocide
Girls and women are far more likely than are men to be the targets of sexual violence used as a component of genocide, but it is rare that analysts perceive rape to be a component of genocide
Professor of law Catherine MacKinnon on the rapes in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Croatia,…
Sharlach (2000)
a simultaneous expression of misogyny and genocide.12 She describes rape as a method of extermination: It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead.
Siobhan Fisher, writing of the Serbs’ rape-until-pregnant campaign against Muslim and ethnically Croatian females in Bosnia–Herzegovina…
Sharlach (2000)
forced impregnation, not rape per se, constitutes genocide. “Repeated rape alone is still ‘just’ rape, but rape with the intent to impregnate is something more.
Forcing females of a targeted ethnic group to conceive is genocidal because those so impregnated cannot carry the babies of men of their own ethnic group while their wombs are so “occupied.
Sharlach (2000), criticism of Fisher
However, Fisher’s claim that it is coerced impregnation rather than coerced penetration that constitutes genocide is unnec- essarily limited
Rape may indeed constitute genocide regardless of whether conception resulted, as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ruled in 1998. In a precedent-setting case, the ICTR found Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of Taba Commune, guilty of a number of crimes of genocide, including rape
Rape not meant to result in pregnancy and rape of females too young, too old, or unable to reproduce may both be encompassed under the legal definition of genocide because they represent the enemy’s intent to destroy.
Feminist lawyer Rhonda Copelon, arguing against separate category of genocidal rape
Sharlach (2000)
Rape harms a woman whether or not it takes place in the midst of genocide. Copelon fears that when courts treat rape during genocide specially, they are in effect indicating that rape that does not take place during genocide is not a crime of equal magnitude.
Catherine MacKinnon on Serbian aggression and the international community
Sharlach (2000)
argues that the Serbian aggression was genocidal, but that the international community preferred to describe it as “civil war” so as to remove any responsibility for intervening on behalf of the genocide victims
Sharlach (2000), Estimates of the number of women sexually assaulted during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s
vary from 10,000 to 60,000
Ethnically Serbian soldiers perpetrated the majority of the rapes against Muslim and Croatian women in Bosnia– Herzegovina
Sharlach (2000), Doboi
rape camp
soldiers detained between 2000 and 2500 women and girls between May and June of 1992
Sharlach (2000), aftermath of mass rape, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Muslim religious leaders in Bosnia–Herzegovina urged bachelors to marry the single women and girls who had suffered rape, but few did
Sharlach (2000), indicators of a systematic, planned basis of the rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina include
(1) that rapes in non-contiguous parts of Bosnia–Herzegovina had similar characteristics, including raping educated or upper-class women first and forcing family members conned in the same camp to perform incest;
(2) that the rapes happened in different sections of Bosnia–Herzegovina simultaneously and accompanied the ghting; and
(3) that many rapes took place within official detention centers
(4) a male survivor of a concentration camp in Croatia, Dr. Mladen Loncar, offers as another indication of the centrally planned nature of the mass rapes the fact that most of the camps had an identical layout. A rectangle of guards and minefields surrounded another rectangle where soldiers raped and inflicted other forms of torture
Sharlach (2000), Serbian denial
Serbian leaders deny that there was any directive to rape
In 1992, President Radovan Karadzic said, “The lies about the organized rapes of Muslim women are shameful
In 1997, Bosnian–Serb television reporters announced that they had investigated claims of Muslim women raped by Serbs and found all to be false, even though at that time nine of the UN’s 19 indictments of Bosnian– Serb war criminals included charges of sexual assault.
Sharlach (2000), UN’s Special Rapporteur on Rwanda on scale of mass rape in Rwanda
estimates between 250,000 and 500,000 rapes
Most women between the ages of 13 and 50 who survived in Kigali are reputed to be rape victims.
Sharlach (2000), Rwandan widows’ association, Felicite´ Umutanguha Layika, on unwillingness to admit having been raped
their family and neighbors may perceive rape survivors to have been willing participants and even complicit with the Interahamwe in the genocide.
“From society’s point of view there is little sympathy, for at the moment that men and children died without defense, these women used the sex card, ‘selling their bodies’ to save their lives.”
Sharlach (2000), nature of rape in Rwandan genocide
Rape in the Rwandan genocide usually preceded murder, or was intended to cause fatal injuries. The Interahamwe preferred to inict a protracted death upon the Tutsi rather than to kill them swiftly
Sharlach (2000), HIV
deliberate transmission of HIV was a unique component of rape as genocide in Rwanda.
Survivors report that Hutu men diagnosed with HIV raped Tutsi women during the civil war, then told the women that they would die slowly and gruelingly from AIDS.
A staff member of Rwandan Women’s Net in Kigali, which operates the Polyclinic of Good Hope for women survivors of war, told me that the majority of rape survivors test positive for HIV
In Rwanda, protease inhibitors (to control HIV) are not available, and HIV left untreated is almost certain to result in AIDS and death in approximately 7–15 years.
Therefore, for a Hutu man known to be HIV-positive to rape a Tutsi woman is in essence protracted genocide
Sharlach (2000), mass rapes planned?
Dr. Bonnet of Doctors Without Borders believes that rape in Rwanda was systematic, premeditated, and used intentionally as a weapon of ethnic conict to destroy the Tutsi community and to render any survivors silent.
A genocide and rape survivor that I interviewed, nevertheless, believed that the rapes were spontaneous
Sharlach (2000), genocide law and rape in Rwanda
Rwanda’s Parliament took several years to agree upon the genocide law, which divides genocide crimes into four levels.71 The first level carries a mandatory death penalty. This category is reserved for the planners of the genocide, those implicated who held public or military office, and those who were especially ruthless and prolific killers. The second level of the genocide law is for those who were not leaders, but who participated in the killings. The third level is for assault (not murder), and the fourth is for crimes against property.
A representative of the Rwandan women’s group, Pro-Femmes, believes that most Rwandan men do not consider rape to be a crime, much less a crime of genocide.
However, Pro-Femmes lobbied for rape to be considered among the most serious genocide crime
Parliament decided to include rape in level one among the most serious crimes of genocide.
Thus, for the average Hutu man who participated in the genocide but was neither a leader nor an especially prolific killer, a conviction for rape would carry a heavier penalty than would a conviction for murder.
However, not one man has yet been found guilty within the Rwandan courts of perpetrating rape during the genocide.
Sharlach (2000), lack of prosecution of rapists and its significance
neither the International Tribunal nor the Rwandan judiciary has sentenced one man for committing rape. (The Tribunal has prosecuted a man, Jean-Paul Akayesu, who was the mayor of the Taba commune, and a woman, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who, surprisingly, was the minister of family and women’s affairs, for encouraging their subordinates to rape)
The seeming disinterest around the globe in prosecution of rape as genocide may mean that in future ethnic conflicts men believe that they have license to rape
Bos (2006), feminist interpretations of wartime rape
- informed by a theoretical
understanding of “everyday rape” that emerged through feminist activism,
particularly that of radical feminists in the late 1970s
- In particular, the analysis of rape as primarily motivated by power and control (sex is merely the chosen vehicle through which to inflict harm on a woman rather than the motive for the act) was pathbreaking.
Brownmiller, Against Our Will
Bos (2006)
argues that in patriarchy, male attitudes toward women and virility encourage rape and that when given the opportunity, for instance during war or military occupation,
men should indeed be expected to rape. She suggests further that rape is
integral to legitimizing patriarchy and has been much more prevalent
throughout history than has been previously acknowledged
Bos (2006) critique of Brownmiller
First, Brownmiller’s tendency to view rape and the
politics of rape as both common and universal throughout history, as in
essence ahistorical or transhistorical and transcultural, can lead to a decontextualization
of specific incidences of rape and a near demonizing of
all men.
Second, in suggesting that rape should be understood as a crime of systemic misogyny, little room is left for the possibility of women’s
sexual agency.
Feminist analyses of wartime rape have adopted some of the basic tenets
of Brownmiller’s thesis on everyday rape, thus:
it remains to a great extent unexamined if and how sexual
violence during wartime belongs to the same continuum of patriarchal
violence against women or whether it is indeed an altogether different
phenomenon from everyday, peacetime rape.
Bos (2006) two approaches
sexism approach - women as the collective target
and object of rape are emphasized
genocide approach, in which the ethnicity or race of the women is the focus and women are seen as
collectively violated as a particular ethnic or racial group rather than, or
in addition to, as women.
both of these ways of viewing the conflict—along
gender or ethnic/racial lines—played a role in the ideology that fueled
the wars and in the violence itself: it was both sexual and ethnic/racial.
Bos (2006), significance of sexist vs genocidal approaches to rape
Most local Yugoslav feminists and
a number of American feminist rape advocates argued that intervention
should take place on behalf of all women who were facing rape in this conflict: Bosnian women, certainly, but Croatian and Serb women as well.
Other scholars argued instead that since the Serb attack on the Bosnian
women seemed to be planned and systemic and since Serbs were the main
aggressors in this war, attempts at intervention should focus on helping
Bosnian women and on condemning Serb men specifically.
Underlying this disagreement was a debate over whether the rapes
should be seen in essence as sexist in nature or as genocidal
Bos (2006), proponents of seeing Bosnian genocide rapes as sexist crime
worried that if one focused on the genocidal aspect of the Serb rapes this would downplay the fact that
women on all sides were being raped.
Women’s universal victimization wld fail to be highlighted
Bos (2006), feminist law scholar Rhonda Copelon
focus on these rapes as genocidal might actually backfire:
“The mass rape in Bosnia has captured world attention . . . largely because
of its association with ‘ethnic cleansing,’ or genocide. . . . But to emphasize
as unparalleled the horror of genocidal rape is factually dubious and risks rendering rape invisible once again”
the women were raped not primarily because of their ethnicity but because of their sex
Bos (2006), scholars arguing for rape as form of genocide in Bosnia
e Serbs were systematically raping Bosnian Muslim women and were using rape as a weapon of extinction and that as such these rapes were indeed different from “ordinary” wartime rape. They suggested that the genocidal aspect should be grounds for
military or political intervention
while the rapes were not exclusive to the Serbian forces, the Serbs had set the pattern in 1992 by practicing systematic rape and that when Bosnian
Croats adopted this same strategy by 1993 to create an “ethnically pure Croatian sector,” they were only doing so in response to the Serbs
who “have an ideology . . . ‘ethnic cleansing’” (Stiglmayer 1994a, xi–xii).
Catharine MacKinnon
Bos (2006)
“In this war, the fact of
Serbian aggression is beyond question, just as the fact of male aggression
against women is beyond question, both here and in everyday life” (1994,
186).22 She argued that what distinguished these Serbian rapes is that they were “ethnic rape as an official policy of war in a genocidal campaign for
political control” (1994, 190)
Bos (2006), ICTY
created while
the war was still going on in 1993. For the first time in history, rape was
treated as a crime of war before an international court
Wartime rape was now
considered a crime in terms of the harm done to the woman, and as a
separate war act that could now be prosecuted as suc
Bos (2006), strategy of feminist legal scholars arguing rape genocidal
If feminists were hoping
for some direct military or legal intervention in this conflict on the basis of these rapes, or if they hoped to ensure successful prosecution in a war
tribunal later on, legal scholars realized the need to argue that these rapes were somehow unique. After all, if one used Brownmiller’s model of rape
as a universal, transhistorical crime, one could seek intervention only on the basis of women in general, not on the basis of a particular group of women victims. Yet an effective call for military or political intervention
in this war would mean that one did need to choose sides, not on behalf
of men or women but on behalf of particular women
Bos (2006), feminist legal scholars’ arguments
. First, the rapes caused
social ostracism for the Muslim rape victims that in turn would lead to the destruction of the group (see point c in the Genocide Convention);
second, the rapes were a form of genocide because their aim was to force impregnation. That is, the intent to produce Serbian children was seen
as the purpose of the rapes, and the fact that many women were detained by the Serbs after having been raped so they could not abort their pregnancies was offered as evidence (the rapes conformed to point c or e of the Genocide Convention). Furthermore, the impregnations caused by
the rapes also functioned to prevent Bosnian Muslim women from carrying
their own children. While already pregnant with a child through rape by a Serbian, a Muslim woman’s womb was in fact occupied by the enemy
and could not produce a Muslim child (see points c and d of the Genocide Convention).
Bos (2006), problems with feminist legal scholars’ arguments
by arguing both intent and harm on the basis of the ethnic stereotypes that were circulating in this conflict, Western feminists ceased to question either the validity of these statements or whether they indeed were universally
accepted by all sides.
Reified highly dubious form of Serb ethnic essentialism
Second, the Muslim community’s assumed response to these rapes and the harm they caused, both to the women and to the community as a whole, was
based on assumptions about ethnicity that turned out to be far too generalizing
and essentialist
. Many of the Bosnian Muslim women came from modern, secular, and thoroughly
assimilated communities, and the severe ostracism they would presumably encounter did not materialize.
erases the memory of Bosnia-Herzegovina as the multicultural region it
used to be before the war, with a high intermarriage rate and thus presumably
a good number of ethnically mixed children. It confirms rather
than denies the ethnic-nationalist rhetoric
Bos (2006), MacKinnon
“It is rape for reproduction as ethnic liquidation: Croatian and Muslim women are
raped to help make a Serbian state by making Serbian babies”
Bos (2006), harm and agency
Because the focus of analysis is exclusively on the harm caused by rape, the victimization of women is at the center, and this means, first,
that rape is defined as the worst possible form of harm and, second, that women are seen as victims only, not as participants in or supporters of war.
fail to acknowledge that forms of harm other than rape may have been as damaging or more so and should have required intervention as well.
This assumption was in fact contested by many of the rape victims themselves.
plenty of evidence that Serb and Croat women were indeed
participants in the war (Borneman 1998, 295)
At least we should be able
to acknowledge that many women in the region openly legitimated the
brutal actions of male relatives and community member
forty-year-old Muslim woman, quoted in Stiglmayer 1994, on fate worse than rape
In interview:
“They pushed bottle necks into our sex, they even stuck shattered, broken bottles into some women. . . . Guns too. And then you don’t know if he’s going to fire, you’re scared to death, everything else, the rape, becomes less important, even the rape doesn’t seem so
terrible to you anymore” (quoted in Stiglmayer 1994b, 118)
Bos (2006), women’s suggestions male counterparts worse off than they
Many of the women were raped, but they were not murdered, while most of the captured
men would be brutally tortured and murdered—by being burned alive, pulled behind cars, or slain with knives in their extremities, genitals,
or neck and left bleeding to death. Furthermore, many of these men experienced sexual abuse as well
Bos (2006), summary
By following the rape as genocide strategy, which did ensure some successful prosecutions, feminists have reified assumptions about ethnic identity that now have become part of the ICTY prosecution strategy as well. By seeing all women as potential rape victims and freeing them of any responsibility, feminists
have come to reinforce problematic assumptions about women’s agency in patriarchy that they would normally be quick to criticize.
Bourke, An Intimate History, Women go to war
women as supporting war effort, becoming soldiers (one as Serbian soldier)
construction of gender differences, etc
femininity and killing
killing in defence of the weak as super-femininity
Rather than being the ‘other’ in war, women were integral part of the slaughter of war and myths surrounding it.
Pleasures of violence shared by women. Since denied experience of combat, responded by offering up bodies of their sons, husbands, lovers to killing fields
Through this violence, they earned their right to grief
Rise of women in combat roles since Vietnam War
Sexual violence against women in Rwanda on blackboard
good overview w stats, quotes by officials etc.
In a report called “Shattered Lives: Sexual violence during Rwandan genocide and the aftermath,” Binaifer Nowrojee, executive director of the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, published very graphic testimonies of rape.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly
Resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989
entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with Article 49
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of
discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the
child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members.
Article 3
1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions,
courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a
primary consideration.
Michlic, Gender perspective and rescue in Poland
the social punishment of female rescuers took
in some cases on a specific gendered violence in the form of injury to and humiliation of women’s bodies: cutting off their hair and rape. Given the extremely shameful nature of such brutal treatment and the fear of continuing repercussions, the women –victims of
these crimes were reluctant to speak out about the subject even in the letters to the Jewish
organizations
Germans’ brutal punitive measures against the rescuers of Jews transformed the home-made hate language
of the 1920s and 1930s into vicious deeds during the war
The letters that speak about the specific gendered-nature of violence against
women–rescuers, refer to cases in which the Polish men- bandits assaulted females by cutting off their hair. In such cases, the cutting off the women’s hair is not a sole, but one of the elements of the punishment for rescuing Jews. This is well illustrated in the undated early postwar letter of Stanisław Chęcia, the head of a peasant family in Bełżyce.
Chęcia briefly describes how he, his wife and two daughters were ‘disciplined’ for saving
a Jewish baby. The baby came to them at six days old some time in 1942.
When the news, unfortunately, spread among Chęcia’s neighbors that his family had saved a Jewish baby ‘home-made fascists bands invaded our home, demolished all our furniture, beat up everybody and cut off my wife’s and my daughters’ hair, shouting that this is a
punishment for [sheltering] a Jewish child.’
Jones, Gender and Genocide
Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict 1991-2 became highly gendered in eyes of the world
the outbreak of the cataclysmic genocide in Rwanda in April 1994 gave a strong spur to the concept of genocidal rape.
Tutsi women targeted on vaster scale than women in Balkans
HIV
September 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) issued its famous judgement against Jean-Paul Akayesu, a Hutu bourgmeister charged, among many other crimes, with facilitating and supervising the rape of Tutsi women. The judgement was the first to define rape as a genocidal act, when ‘in the same way as any other act’ it was ‘committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group targeted as such’. The ‘bodily and mental harm [inflicted] on the victim’ was also emphasized. The Akayesu judge- ment electrified the feminist movement
The Nyiramasuhuko case also highlighted in unprecedented fashion the issue of female perpetration
Nyiramasuhuko was the first woman ever to be tried by an international tribunal for the crime of genocide, and for genocidal rape.
Predominance of males among genocidal killers is regularly noted
Radford, Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing (1992)
domestic violence in industrialized societies
Brownmiler, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1975)
Rape permeates patriarchal society and is essential to its perpetuation
MacKinnon
in the Bosnian context, rape was ‘a tool, a tactic, a policy, a plan, a strategy, as well as a practice’:
rape as genocide, rape directed toward women because they are Muslim or Croatian. But when rape is a genocidal act, as it is here, it is an act to destroy a people. What is done to women defines that destruction. … This is not rape out of control. It is rape under control.
It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead. It is rape as an instrument of forced exile, rape to make you leave your home and never want to go back. It is rape to be seen and heard and watched and told to others: rape as spectacle
Copelon critique of MacKinnon
The elision of genocide and rape in the focus on ‘genocidal rape’ … [is] dangerous. Rape and genocide are separate atrocities. Genocide – the effort to destroy a people – based on its identity as a people evokes the deepest horror and warrants the severest condemnation. Rape is sexualized violence that seeks to humiliate, terrorize, and destroy a woman based on her iden- tity as a woman. … To emphasize as unparalleled the horror of genocidal rape is factually dubious and risks rendering rape invisible once again
Copelon critique of MacKinnon
The elision of genocide and rape in the focus on ‘genocidal rape’ … [is] dangerous. Rape and genocide are separate atrocities. Genocide – the effort to destroy a people – based on its identity as a people evokes the deepest horror and warrants the severest condemnation. Rape is sexualized violence that seeks to humiliate, terrorize, and destroy a woman based on her iden- tity as a woman. … To emphasize as unparalleled the horror of genocidal rape is factually dubious and risks rendering rape invisible once again
Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 (1994)
argued that the genocide ‘was about power relations between men and women perhaps as much as it was about power relations between groups of men.’ Among other things, ‘to many Rwandans gender relations in the 1980s and 1990s were falling into a state of decadence as more women attained positions of prominence in economic and public life.’ Genocide was an extremist back- lash ‘to reclaim both patriarchy and the Hutu revolution’. As for the fate of Tutsi women under Hutu Power, Taylor traced from colonial times a portrayal of Tutsi women ‘as more beautiful than Hutu women’, and thus objects of both attraction and resentment for Hutu males. In pre-genocidal propaganda, ‘Hutu cartoonists depicted Tutsi women as prostitutes capable of enlisting Western support for the RPF [rebel] cause through the use of their sexual charms.’ Accordingly, when the holocaust erupted, it was unsurprising that ‘special measures of terrorism were reserved for Tutsi women by the extremists.
Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 (1994)
argued that the genocide ‘was about power relations between men and women perhaps as much as it was about power relations between groups of men.’ Among other things, ‘to many Rwandans gender relations in the 1980s and 1990s were falling into a state of decadence as more women attained positions of prominence in economic and public life.’ Genocide was an extremist back- lash ‘to reclaim both patriarchy and the Hutu revolution’. As for the fate of Tutsi women under Hutu Power, Taylor traced from colonial times a portrayal of Tutsi women ‘as more beautiful than Hutu women’, and thus objects of both attraction and resentment for Hutu males. In pre-genocidal propaganda, ‘Hutu cartoonists depicted Tutsi women as prostitutes capable of enlisting Western support for the RPF [rebel] cause through the use of their sexual charms.’ Accordingly, when the holocaust erupted, it was unsurprising that ‘special measures of terrorism were reserved for Tutsi women by the extremists.
Women killed in numbers equal to if not exceeding those of men
Elshtain’s Women and War (1987)
‘women in overwhelming numbers have supported their state’s wars in the modern West’
African Rights, 1995, Rwanda: Not So Innocent - Women As Killers
Rwanda: Not So Innocent – Women As Killers, argued that an emphasis on women as victims of the geno- cide had tended to ‘obscur[e] the role of women as aggressors’. ‘When it came to mass murder’, wrote the authors, ‘there were a lot of women who needed no encouragement.’
women participated in the persecution, murder, and sexual enslavement of Tutsi women, perhaps feeling satisfaction at the ‘comeuppance’ of females who had for so long been pre- sented as Rwanda’s sexual elite
Lentin
called for ‘the definition of genocide [to] be gendered’, since ‘catastrophes, genocidal or otherwise … target women in very specific ways due to their social, ethnic and national construction.’
Jacobs et al.
stressed emph on women’s agency, alongside men’s, in both creating and challenging conflict
El-Bushra
rejected an understanding of gendered power relations based on ‘a simplistic divide between power/men on the one hand and powerlessness/ women on the other’.41 She also decisively discounted the ‘Beautiful Soul’ motifs that Jean Bethke Elshtain had first destabilized, contending that ‘The association of women’s “nurturing” role with the promotion of peace and compassion does not stand up to close examination, since, although women may well be active in peace-work in many contexts, they are also often in the forefront of demands for aggression in defence of their and their group’s interests.’
Jones, vulnerability of ‘battle-age’ civilian males
evacuation from Srebrenica -women, children and old evacuated. But Serbian requirement that no males with combat potential be carried out overland was respected
Srebrenica as massacre of men and boys (!!!!)
Jones, vulnerability of ‘battle-age’ civilian males
evacuation from Srebrenica -women, children and old evacuated. But Serbian requirement that no males with combat potential be carried out overland was respected
Srebrenica as massacre of men and boys (!!!!)
Ringelheim, Jewish men
considered objective enemy of National Socialism.
Decision to kill every Jew did not seem to demand special justification to kill Jewish men, already ident as dangerous
Fein, gender
distinguished between gender- neutral and gender-specific genocide: that is, ‘genocides which seek to destroy everyone regardless of gender … and those which destroy only males (there is no record of a perpetrator of genocide destroying only females).’ She argued that ‘gender-neutral’ genocide was on the rise, in part because the decline of slavery had reduced incentives for conquerors to preserve women and children alive.
Jones, Gendercide and Genocide
provided a wealth of examples of selective mass killings of men, drawn from paradigmatic genocides of the twentieth cen- tury and contemporary campaigns of state terror.
article’s core contention was that the most vulnerable and consistently targeted population group, throughout time and around the world today, is noncombatant men of ‘battle age’, roughly fifteen to fifty-five years old.
nearly universally perceived as the group pos- ing the greatest danger to the conquering force, and are the group most likely to have the repressive apparatus of the state directed against them.
The ‘non-combatant’ distinction is also vital. Unlike their armed brethren, these men have no means of defending themselves and can be detained and exterminated by the thousands or millions
gendercidal institution - institutionalized forms of gender-selective killing
Jones, Gendercide Watch website
included 22 detailed case studies of gendercides in modern history
Carpenter
She found broad support for the argu- ment that ‘gender norms influenced both the moral framework by which the civilian protection regime developed [in Bosnia] and the manner in which civilian protection operations were carried out in the former Yugoslavia between 1991–95.’ In particular, she discovered that ‘gender stereotypes can inhibit effective policy’, as when adult civilian males were marginalized in humanitarian efforts despite their great vulnerability to attack.
‘there is a case to be made for conceptualizing all women as always socially vulnerable because of the gendered structure of power within war- affected communities.’ But she added, What is problematic is the simultaneous exclusion of men’s socially induced vulnerabilities from the definition. While able-bodied men, as adults, are among the least vulnerable group physically, they become far more vulner- able than women, children, and the elderly to certain forms of attack in certain situations because of socially constructed assumptions about male gender roles.
Carpenter stressed the validity of a ‘nonfeminist gender theory’ in studies of international politics: ‘By this I mean scholarship that utilizes gender in analysis while lacking one or both other components of feminist theory: an emphasis on women and a critical/interpretive epistemology.’ This allowed attention to subjects and per- spectives that were largely ruled out by feminism’s defining interests and pre- suppositions. ‘Women’s subordination and victimization is too often assumed by feminists rather than examined contextually, and there is little substantive work on how gender constrains the life chances of “people called men”
Holter, Theory of Gendercide
Gendercide cannot be seen simply as a result of gender culture, for example, as a general element of male aggression. Nor is it only a result of inequality
structures. Rather, gender cultures that remain mainly peaceful in most circum- stances can, in some contexts, be mobilized as parts of an aggressive policy, usually by being linked to other forms of oppression. Gender becomes racist gender or classist gender.
Gendercide is usually a component of other terror processes (genocide, ethnocide). A theory of gendercide cannot, therefore, address gender in isolation, but must highlight the gender relations that also exist in these other processes.
The following elements seem to be typical of the build-up of aggression that
leads to gendercide:
(a) a process of devaluation—a breakdown of normal political outlets and
democracy combined with poverty, exploitation or perceived humiliation, as
well as sex strati cation;
(b) reactive reevaluation through gender, “race” and other social mechanisms, usually together with increased victimization;
(c) a build-up of aggression;
(d) antagonistic con ict and war.
Gendercide is more than a cover-up for genocide. Although usually not stated,
there is little doubt that an element of gender-related motivation is also
present—an attempt to destroy the gender of the enemy, to use gender-selective
murder as a means of terror, to make an example of the victim
entrench a very masculinized image of the enemy. Any male is
potentially dangerous
In the modern view, gender seems more relevant when women are involved than men
gender and gendered assumptions as ‘part of the scenery, positioned in the background’
A typical Nazi response to partisan action in
occupied Europe was to burn down the nearby village and either kill the men
outright or send the men to death camps in Germany. This happened even in
“mildly” treated occupied areas, like Norway (the village of TelavaÊ g).3 But if Anne Frank had taken this gendered and anti-male aspect of Nazi tactics to be
their main strategy, and emerged from hiding, she would not have survived. Whatever the gender situation, she would have been killed as a Jew, due to the
racist (or regressive-political) character of Nazi aggression, which overrode the
gender aspect. Analyzing gender and con icts therefore usually means to
understand how gender and other forces interact
. In the Nazi case, gender was
secondary to politics and race.
Increasingly, however, modern
society turned from paternalistic to masculinist inequality forms, a development
associated with the factory system and the need to discipline
The transition from paternalist to masculinist forms of gender inequality was accompanied by emerging working-class political move- ments. This created a wave of reaction and eventually, in the mid-twentieth century, a new con ict paradigm between authoritarian and democratic forces. Paternalistic principles resurfaced in authoritarian masculinistic regimes. Enlist- ment in the army was democratized, but in a total and totalitarian sense. Eventually, even the professional barrier was broken; any person, or at least any man, could be “rationally” treated as an enemy soldier
increasingly inclusive aspect of soldiering on the male side was connected
with a feminine formation on the other side.
War was for something; it should involve any man; and its goal was expressed
in terms of nation, race and gender. To be a gentleman was to protect women
and children
Grif n notes: “It should be remembered when reading such
reactionary texts that fascist leaders claimed to be revolutionizin g traditional
womanhood and motherhood by making them vital to the creation of the rejuvenated national community.”
19 The whole ensemble of gender relations was
reoriented in terms of racist ideology.
With its promise to
restore law and order and to turn the economy around, the Nazis seem to have
appealed to many women voters earlier deterred by Nazi brutality. The Nazis
now got even more votes from women than men
Returning to Anne Frank as example. She might have been half-Jewish or
purely “Aryan,” white as snow, and yet killed as a suspect spy or radical. The
Nazis killed “Aryans” when needed. The strategy was politically reactive, not
racist as such—although the two were already tightly bound in Mein Kampf. It
is important to distinguish between the core political purpose, and its link to scapegoating and victimization processes with massive projection of social
problems. The core purpose was popularized and institutionalize d as a pro table
matter for all Germans through the scapegoating mechanism, with the Jews as
primary victims, via the racist-hierarchical policy of Lebensraum.
The typical rst target of this type of strategy is dissidents and opponents in one’s own ranks. The rst inmates of the Nazi camps were the radicals and
communists of Germany
On March 21, 1933, the police president in
Munich, Reichsfu¨hrer SS Heinrich Himmler, announced: “Germany’s rst con- centration camp will be opened Close to Dachau. Here, Communists, Marxists
and others that represent a danger to the Reich’s security will be assembled.”
In the years 1939–42, seven new concentration camps (Auschwitz, Neuengamme etc.) were
created. Some of the camps now got a new function as extermination camps (Vernichtungslager).
There were two categories that were to be exterminated. One was Jews, the other was political commissars among the Russian prisoners of war
. A “shame culture” creates shame-related violence. Modern society, however, is also, a “guilt culture,” with more internalized
forms of control. Shame and guilt often work together, but the guilt element is
central to most of the con ict phenomena. industrialized killing of six million Jews through extreme inhumanity disguised
as rationality points to a much more self-inclusive or egocentric power system
than those typical of paternalist societies and shame cultures. In this logic, there
is no moderation, only a nal solution.
e marginalization and devaluation of men’s caring potential, including
the attempt to erase men’s caring and emotional sensibility in wars, have
been much more costly to society than is ordinarily assumed
Scheck
historians have been astonished by the sudden success of the NSDAP among women in the
three Reichstag elections of 1932 and 1933. The Nazi party was most reactionary on women’s issues; whereas all other parties, even the conservative DNVP, had sponsored
female representatives in parliaments since the passage of female suffrage in 1918/19, the Nazis had declared that politics would debase women and draw them away from their “precious” work as mothers and housewives.
Holter, 9-step theory of gendercide
- anti-democratic core political purpose
2.Early and/or background gender dynamics
In the case of Germany, women supported the Nazi idea of women as masters
in a separate domestic sphere that would be fed by Germany’s “naturally greater role in the world,” to the extent that women became the majority of Hitler’s voters
even if men are, on the whole, more involved with aggression than women, there is usually a relation between the two genders and a shared understanding that underpins the violence
- A victimization connection and, gradually , a system.
young men, dreaming of cleansing and revenge) are externalized (e.g. by
throwing stones at Jews. A system of victimization is not based only on trauma and anxiety, but also
on greed and control - Creation of an aggressive ideology (often disguising 1–3)
- “Mythic core” formation,65 including race gender.
In Yugoslavia, for example, neo-nationalist leaders
mobilized public opinion against free (“provocative,” “Western”) women, and
then made the media portray rapes as ethnic attacks.” Women-prey were defined by class and race … the taboo prey was Serbian women.
The basic mythic core consists of motherland and soldier, as an alternative to
worker and democratic citizen.
mythic core is a regression from a democratic
everyday problem-solving approach, which it replaces with the idea that troubles
can be avoided by exploiting, dominating or killing other people.
e later, more well-known phases include (6) the rise to power of authoritarian leaders
and the breakdown of democracy; (7) the build-up, including a reorganization of
gender; (8) con ict; and (9) genocide and gendercide.
Does the model give the misleading impression that politics precedes all? I do
not think so
reasons to emphasize the destruction
of politics as a major aspect
. One may argue, therefore, that gendercide and genocide are not mainly consequences of politics, but rather of
attacks on the social “body political.” The terror can develop when democratic
political processes have been corrupted and the leaders eliminated. Politics
becomes an arena of victimization rather than association and negotiation.
In this context, gendercide is often a rst step towards genocide, but also
important in itself. For example, the Nazi killing of male Soviet POWs should
not be interpreted only as a political move, but also a gender statement showing
the superiority of the Aryan “superman”
Race gender becomes
part of a context of more severe class exploitation, but this does not appear
within the privileged race- and gender-de ned group. Instead, the regime creates
an ideology of a “cleansed” motherland area, the basis of the master state, and
a wider periphery
This “sub-human” periphery is created with the
goal of making the servant population work for the master state, and/or to
extinguish it through inhuman work methods
con icts become genocidal and gendercidal
when other and more normal options—sexual, moral, social, political—are
stalled
A “mythic core” mechanism linking racism and
sexism will arise and take on a life of its own.70When one investigates their
social and psychological roots, various fundamentalisms and authoritarian poli- cies show similar tendencies. Gender segregation and non-caring masculinity
(father absence) are typical traits, together with the political construction of an
aggressive “male nature.”
Holter, what is gendercide
gender- selective use of terror in war
Jones, Gender and Genocide and Rwanda
Argument for gender-inclusive approach to examining gender variable in genocide
such commentary as exists on gender and
genocide has tended to actively suppress the male experience, with the aim, in
most cases, of increasing the sympathy and policy attention extended to female
victims. Such an approach should be seen as a betrayal of the spirit of human
rights work, which is based on the fundamentally equal worth of all those
targeted for abuses and atrocities.
The gendering of genocide in Rwanda bears comparison with many of the
worst atrocities of the twentieth century
the Rwandan genocide, as we
have seen, cannot be integrated into this framework without quali cation: the
elderly, children, and women were all swept up in the slaughter from its very
rst hours, though much less systematically than adult and adolescent males.
We have seen that the period leading up to the genocide was characterized by government policies aimed both at mobilizing younger males to become genocidal killers, and at defusing the potential threat to the regime from this same demographic group
The extensive role of women in perpetrating the Rwandan genocide is
apparently without parallel in recorded history
At the St. Famille Church in Kigali, refugees ostensibly under the protection of UNAMIR (the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda) were systematically harassed and decimated by interahamwe raids. Finally, in early June, the UN organized an evacuation, but as a female refugee, Gorette Uwimana, reported, the UNAMIR forces “put the
names [of the refugees] in alphabetical order and when they came to evacuate
they did so in this alphabetical order.” This approach failed to take into account
the fact that “there were some refugees who were more at risk than others, particularly Tutsi men and boys who should have been evacuated first,”
On June 17, after the rst
evacuation convoy had left, “more than one hundred Tutsis,” nearly all male, were selected out of the crowd and executed nearby. Thereafter, “almost all the
Tutsi men were nished
Jones, demonization of adult Tutsi males
The insurgency of the Rwandan
Patriotic Front spawned a climate of fear and vengefulness among both the Hutu
Power elite and the Hutu population at large: all Tutsi men, and many Tutsi
women, were viewed as a traitorous and counter-revolutionar y “ fth column”
The panic thus engendered—in both senses of the term—was critical not only
to drawing the bulk of the Hutu population onto the side of the ge´nocidaires, but to determining how and against whom the genocidal rampage would be directed
, the extermination of males, both Tutsi and oppositionist Hutu, served as a kind of “vanguard for the genocide as a whole, an initial barrier to be surmounted and ‘threat’ to be removed, before the remainder of the community is consigned to violent death”
, gendercidal atrocities against males served to acclimatize
the killers to the killing: “Authorities rst incited attacks on the most obvious
targets—men who had acknowledged or could be easily supposed to have ties
with the RPF—and only later insisted on the slaughter of women, children, the
elderly, and others generally regarded as apolitical.”
27 Implicit in this passage is
the fact that all males from groups deemed “oppositionist ” were deemed ipso
facto to be political, and therefore “fair game” for genocide
n the Nazi-occupied territories, as Daniel Jonah Goldhagen demonstrates in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, the extension of the genocide
from adult men to other population groups was accompanied by signi cant
trauma on the part of the killers, leading eventually to the development of
poison-gas technologies to reduce the culturally-induce d stress of murdering women, children, and the elderly. Much the same cultural constraints existed in
the Rwanda case, resulted in similar stress to some of the killers, and may have
played a role in blunting the genocidal impetus in the later stages of the slaughter
the general thrust of the human rights reportage suggests that, on
balance, males were overwhelmingly targeted in the genocide’s earliest and most
virulent stages. African Rights’ report, Death, Despair and De ance, makes it clear that the early and most exterminatory weeks of the mass killings included
both killings of the type described above, which left thousands or even tens of
thousands of dead men, children, women, and the elderly strewn about the
terrain; and a more selective and gender-selective targeting of males, notably
those with wealth and education:
One of the best indicators of the special vulnerability of men and boys is the
frequency with which relatives and friends sought to disguise them in women’s
clothing. The African Rights report, Death, Despair and De ance, cites a
number of examples of such procedures
m Kamarampaka Stadium ” One occupant, The´odore
Nyilinkwaya, recalled a typical gendercidal massacre at the stadium: Since they did not know the faces of the people they wanted, people were able to hide. Women concealed men by lending them their clothes. Absolutely no one responded to the names they called out. They became furious. They called for all men to come out and form
lines. So the men had no choice
Jones, women and victims
true that in the early stages of the genocide, a degree of of official
exemption was frequently granted to women. “The law for killing Tutsi women
has not yet been passed,” one interahamwe told a female survivor,
There are intriguing indications that attempts to exterminate women, girls, and
the elderly eventually encountered signi cant popular opposition—that, in fact,
it was this element of the campaign that largely gave rise to increasing
disorganization and disorientation among the forces of genocide. “In the later
part of May and in June,” notes Human Rights Watch, “administrators found
ordinary people were deserting the barriers and refusing to do the patrols. … In
permitting or directing the slaughter of the weak, the elderly, women, and
infants, who posed no threat to anyone,7
Jones, genocidal rape
UN Special Rapporteur on Rwanda, Rene´ Degni-Se´gui, noted that in
atrocities against Tutsi women, “rape was the rule and its absence the exception”;
he offered the staggering estimate of 250,000 to 500,000 rapes committed
during the 12 weeks of the genocide.
“Again and again, rape is reported as an
act of extreme brutality,” notes Elenor Richter-Lyonette. “Objects are said to have been used to cause extra pain, and rapes with objects are said to include
among others rapes with stones, with branches from trees of bushes, with
weapons. Rape accompanied by mutilation is reported to include: the pouring of boiling water onto the genital parts and into the vagina in order to create pain and ordeal, the opening of the womb to cut out the unborn child before the killing of the mother, the cutting off of breast(s) and the mutilation of other parts
of the female body.” Even rapes of female cadavers were not unknown
it can be proposed that the prevailing usage is fully in line with the United Nations Convention on Genocide (1948), which does not require deaths among members of the targeted community: genocide can involve “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group,” “deliberately in icting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” All of these may be facilitated or implemented by the rape of community women.88 In the Rwandan context, moreover, rape frequently was followed by killing, or was the means of bringing it about. Here we must attend to a regularly-overlooked aspect of the mass rapes: the threat of AIDS associated with them. “It appears that at least some 35% of Rwandese soldiers were HIV-positive before the genocide of 1994,” a gure that “seems to be very much in line with … other African armies,”
89 and which may have held true for the interahamwe killers and
other men who participated in genocidal atrocities.90 The testimony of women
survivors is replete with expressions of concern about the possibility of having contracted AIDS from the rape and sexual servitude to which they were exposed.
Acts of genocidal rape may thus bring about the death of victims many years
after the genocide itself has “ended.”
Jones, genocidal women
as the African Rights
investigators noted, “when it came to mass murder, there were a lot of women
who needed no encouragement.”
95 Indeed, one can speculate that a greater
proportion of women than men participated voluntarily in the killings, since it
was men, almost exclusively, who were forcibly conscripted into the “work” of
the roadblock killings, and who were exposed to suspicion or violent retribution
if they did not take part. Evading direct participation was probably much easier
for Hutu women (and children) than for Hutu men.
other female
architects of the genocide were:
· Rose Karushara, a councilor in Kigali, who “took an extremely active role in
the genocide, wearing military uniform throughout. A tall and physically
strong woman, she used to beat up the refugees herself before handing them
over to her interahamwe for the nal kill. … At least ve thousand people
were killed, all thrown into the Nyabarongo river under orders from
Karushara.”
· Odette Nyirabagenzi, “the terror of Rugenge” (a sector of Kigali): “As soon
as the genocide began, Odette sent her militia in pursuit of the Tutsi men of
Rugenge. Her thugs hunted for Tutsi men in St. Famille and St. Paul’s
[parishes], as well as the missionary language centre of CELA. She was
physically present on every occasion when men were taken out of these
churches and CELA and massacred. She took an active part in selecting the
men who were to die.”
· Athanasie Mukabatana, “a teacher at the School of Nursing of Kaduha
[Gikongoro prefecture] … When this girl saw the attack arrive near the
hospital, she quickly jumped over the gate of the hospital to get into the
compound. She didn’t even wait for the gate to be opened. You [could] see
the enthusiasm this girl had for nishing off these sick Tutsis. She had a
machete and went into the hospital with the other assassins. She made all the
sick Tutsis go out, often dragging them out. And once outside, she killed them
with a strike from the machete. She made several trips and all the dead were
on the hospital grass.”
. At the grassroots, “very often, groups of
women ululated their men into the ‘action’ that would result in the death of
thousands of innocent men, women and children, many of them their own
neighbours.”
Their role was dominant in the post-massacre looting and strip- ping of bodies
Women (especially, it seems, prostitutes)
were also prominent as spies, denouncing Tutsis and moderate Hutus in hiding
to the interahamwe; according to African Rights, Hutu women were no more
likely than men to grant refuge to those seeking to flee the holocaust
3 One woman survivor, “Juliana,”
104 described her
capture by a young man named Marcel, after which she faced a “court of
women” in which “all his female relatives became involved.” Marcel’s mother “brought some elderly women to the house to insult and intimidate me. These
women accused me of being childish. One of them said ‘Many women of your
kind have been taken by dog-like vagabonds. And here you are, rejecting this
nice young man. … What are you waiting for?
appears
to have been a kind of gendered jubilation at the “comeuppance” of Tutsi
females, who had for so long been depicted in Hutu propaganda as Rwanda’s
sexual elite.
Otherwise, the motivations for women’s involvement as genocidal
killers frequently paralleled those of Hutu men: bonds of ethnic solidarity
Jones, Aftermath of genocide
“Rwanda has become a country of women,” Human Rights Watch contended in
its 1996 report Shattered Lives: The Aftermath of Sexual Violence in Rwanda. “It
is currently estimated that 70 percent of the population is female and that 50
percent of all households are headed by women
Fein (1999), Genocide and gender: The uses of women and group destiny
group destiny as ideology - e.g. idea of pan-Turkic destiny
In the ancient world women were more likely to be spared both because of the
existence of slavery and the general lack of ideologies of inextricable group
differences
Most genocides during this period appear to be retributive—to
eliminate a real or potential threat—rather than ideological or developmental
Viewing modern genocide, in no case studied was there an aim by the
perpetrator to preserve and protect women of the victim group, regardless of the
type of genocide. There is no longer any general incentive to save women for
their utility as slaves in most parts of the world or to expand population.
In genderspecific
genocides (as in Bosnia) the genocider’s tactic appears to be to spoil the
reproduction of the victims rather than to appropriate their babies, which itself
was secondary to driving out the targeted group; women who had been forcibly
impregnated were driven out by the Serb occupiers. The strategy of ethnonationalism,
creating “ethnic purity” by “ethnic cleansing,” negates interest in assimilating women. Instrumentalizing rape was just a tactic toward this end
In two of three cases, the Holocaust and the
Cambodian genocide (which we label “gender-neutral”), rape was not reported
as a pattern by the principal perpetrators. Rape occurred routinely and repeatedly
during the Armenian genocide but, while tolerated, did not appear to be
organized. Gender segregation, humiliation and sadism were reported in both the
Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. Although the Ottoman Turkish genocide
was based on an ideology of ethnonationalism—”pan-Turkism”—Armenian
women and girls were sometimes saved from death by being snatched, converted
to Islam—a religion of inclusion by .conversion—and made wives of Turks,
saving their lives by eradicating their identity.
The ideology of the Aryan myth, however, negated the assimilation of Jewish
women.
Most modern genocides are retributive—responses to threat—and not based
on comprehensive ideologies, although they may demonize the Other and propagate myths of eternal group hostility. But they usually are based in
patriarchal societies in which male dominance is taken for granted. In such
societies, women’s “purity” and honor are usually contingent on their preservation
of virginity before marriage and later inviolability. Repeatedly, we see
that men of the group perpetrating genocides in such societies use rape as a
means to destroy the Other
Sexual assaults are attacks not only against women
but also attacks on the family and the self-esteem of fathers and husbands,
publicly demonstrating their group’s impotence and their inability to protect
“their women.”
While rape has been taken for granted, tolerated, or encouraged during war
and genocide, it has seldom been instrumentalized and institutionalized as in
Bosnia—compelling performers and victims of both sexes in policed camps.
In gender-specific
genocides, men are more likely to be killed directly than women. The segregation
of men from women and children preceding the Srebrenica massacre in
1994 is perhaps the first time this has been observed by the media and viewed
internationally almost when it occurred
Although women are more likely to suffer sexual abuse than men during
genocide, we must recognize from observations in Bosnia that men also suffer
direct and indirect trauma from sexual victimization and torture.
Total genocide—as was aimed for in the Holocaust and Rwanda (and almost
accomplished in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and Rwanda—and gender-neutral
genocide (as in the Holocaust and in Kampuchea) are rare. Gender-specific
genocides destroy millions of lives and maim, injure and traumatize more.
the denial of systematic sexual victimization during genocide (sometimes
by genocide historians due to false modesty) confirms the isolation and
demoralization of the victims, often enduring social death even when embedded
in their communities
Why gendercide? Why root-and-branch? A comparison of the Vendée uprising of 1793–94 and the Bosnian war of the 1990s - Adam Jones 03/2006
Regardless of whether these propositions are seen as valid, the empirical and
conceptual distinction between gendercide and root-and-branch genocide
appears justified
we may propose that a gendercidal strategy
against “battle-age” males will tend to be preferred over root-and-branch genocide
when some combination of the following conditions is present:
. the perpetrator regime is more conservative and flexible (as opposed to radical
and revolutionary) in its political and ideological orientation;
. the perceived security threat to the perpetrator regime is milder rather than more
severe, encouraging greater selectivity of victims and respect for prevailing
international norms;
. military resistance and atrocities by the target population are overwhelmingly
the province of adult males;
. ingrained beliefs and cultural patterns governing gender emphasize a combination
of the following: male protectiveness towards “weaker” population
members; male demeaning of females as subordinate and irrelevant; and
special male virulence towards out-group men;
. significant morally-imbued vigilance, reflecting traditional gender norms, is
exercised by international actors
Jones, what is gendercide?
gender-selective mass killing
Jones, bosnia-herzegovina
From the outset of the Bosnian genocide, it was clear that a gender-selective
strategy would predominate, and largely delimit the genocide’s exterminatory
dimension.7 As Bosnian Prime Minister Hasan Muratovic described Serb strategy
in 1996: “Wherever they [the Serbs] captured people, they either detained or killed
all the males from 18 to 55 [years old]. It has never happened that the men of that
age arrived across the front-line.
Testimony drawn
from just a few pages of Helsinki Watch’s investigation, War Crimes in BosniaHerzegovina,
bears this out with chilling clarity:
In my village, about 180 men were killed. The army put all men in the center of the village.
After the killing, the women took care of the bodies and identified them. The older men
buried the bodies. (Trnopolje)
: while indiscriminate massacres of civilians did occur at a
number of points in the Balkans conflict (notably with the protracted bombardments
of urban areas like Sarajevo and Vukovar), and while diverse strategies
of genocide (in the UN Convention definition) were employed,15 the core
element of mass murder was overwhelmingly focused upon “battle-age” outgroup
males. The Serb campaign at the heart of the 1990s genocide in Bosnia
was savage, but also sophisticated in its selectivity. Ethnicity was the primary criterion
for selection. Next in significance was usually gender. Third was age
The Rape of the Nation: Women Narrativising Genocide - Lentin 1999, Genocide and femininity
genocide and wars are gendered but also often feminised via the positioning of women not only as sexual trophies exchangeable between male enemies, not only as markers of collective boundaries, but also as the symbolic representations of national and ethnic collectivities
(some victims’ accounts quoted)
The figure of woman is often the chosen representative image of genocide and war
not only wars, but also their resolution, are gendered. They are both inflicted, and assuaged, by military power, based on a ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and a military apparatus as a classic dominance-oriented masculine structure
Genocide, however, is not only gendered, it is also feminised, via the symbolic representation of ‘woman’ as victim, and via targeting women as mothers, chattels, sexual objects, repositories of family and national honour and shame, and the symbolic representational trope of the nation. Nation as beloved mother, ‘the defeated nation being reborn as a triumphant woman’
An illustration of the feminisation of genocide is the way genocidal projects target women due to their ‘biological destiny’ as evidenced by Nazi ideology, which, resting on the eugenic conviction of German ‘racial superiority’, discriminated against women as child bearers
During the Shoah, women of child bearing age, although useful to the Nazis as workers, posed a menace because they could bear Jewish (or Roma) children and ensure the continuity the ‘racially inferior’ groups and were therefore exterminated (Rittner and Roth, 1993). German doctors, serving genocidal interests, experimented with X-rays, injections and drugs, as surgical sterilisations were too expensive, to control the reproduction of Jewish and Roma women
via the usage of feminine images to represent genocidal events, and via targeting women as the (re)producers of ethnic collectivities, genocides are also feminised, casting women as universal victims, despite the active role they often play in resisting victimisation.
feminisation of genocide often belittles the depth of the trauma and belies male anxieties about the assumed infringement of the collectivity’s honour which is invariably seen as residing in women’s, not men’s, bodies.
The feminist strategy of employing women’s personal narratives as primary sources is one way of making visible women’s experiences of victimisation and resistance in our scholarship and writing. It is also a way of de-linking the feminised images and the larger political context of genocide,
The Rape of the Nation: Women Narrativising Genocide - Lentin 1999, genocide and rape
In Rwanda between a quarter and half a million Tutsi women were raped in 1994 (Human Rights Watch, 1996). And as the quotes at the start of this article attest, the Bosnian pattern is being replicated in Kosovo.
Seeking to problematise feminist analyses of wartime rape, Rejali cites Horowitz’s differentiation between two ethnic systems, ‘ranked’ - where groups stand in clear superordination or subordination to one another, and ‘unranked’ - in which each group is potentially a whole society (Horowitz, 1985: 1-92). When ethnic and racial categories are in danger, rape may serve as an instrument of renegotiation and thus constitute an ethnomarker:
When an unranked system collapses, as in Bosnia, women’s bodies become a battlefield where men communicate their rape to other men - because women’s bodies had been the implicit political battlefield all along (Rejali, 1998: 30).
I much prefer Boric’s (1997) approach to wartime rape as ‘gender violence,’ taking into account constructions of gender and eschewing the temptation to eroticise a horrific crime. In relation to wartime rape, constructions of gender must be intersected with racialisation processes if we are to begin to understand rape as a strategy of making and re-making boundaries on women’s bodies,
wartime rape is not only about sex, nor only about power, but about the social construction of gender and, in times of war, about the gendered constructions of ethnicity and nation.
Littlewood (1997)
who argues that ethnic boundaries are made and re-made on women’s bodies, rehearses, and rejects, several sets of understandings of military rape. According to the militarism argument, collective sexual violence by men mirrors and exemplifies an ethic of male exceptionalism, violence as masculinity, requiring an elevation of ‘our’ women in opposition to the degradation of ‘theirs.’ When a society incorporates images of women as valued or de-valued ideals, sexual violence in war is enacted by men of this everyday set of understandings. The militarism argument, however, fails to explain the increase of sexual violence at times of ambiguity, or the occasional participation of women in sexual violence. According to the transgressive argument, military rape is the result of absolute desire, usually checked by society, which is unleashed through the opportunities of war. This argument, however, presumes all men are inherent rapists limited only by societal values. Because neither the militaristic nor the transgressive arguments explain why sexual violence, Littlewood tries biosocial explanations to propose that while wartime anxiety and fear are not conducive to male sexual arousal, most rapes occur after the battle is over and are linked to notions of spoils of war, which include the reward of ‘alien’ women.
Hague (1997)
theorisation of the mass rapes in Bosnia in terms of constructing a hetero-nationalism
the Serb and Bosnian Serb military policy of genocidal rape imagined, and then constructed a specific type of masculinity, consistently aggressive, violent, powerful and dominating (Hague, 1997: 53).
Hague goes on to argue that the powerful Serb masculinity that genocidal rape constructed operated through the feminisation of the rape victim, male or female, combining heterosexual military masculinity with constructions of Serb superiority to create a hetero-nationality, a different national identity from that of the rape victim (Hague, 1997:54).
War itself is rape. Wartime rape is about taking the enemy’s territory, as has been made patently obvious in military discourses equating enemy territory with a woman’s body in need of (both military and romantic) conquest (Sharoni, 1992). And, although feminist theory and experience tells us that violence committed against women in wartime replicates and continues violence against women at peacetime, and although the stories of the rapes in Bosnia, used in political games employed the symbolism of woman only when politically necessary (Boric, 1997: 39), wartime rape must be ultimately seen also as the rape of the nation.
Zagreb journalist and feminist activist Vesna Kesic
A raped Croatian woman is a raped Croatia. Here was a mystic unity of woman and the country identified through her. Once again, the nation’s identity is established through women’s bodies.. The consequence of equating the raped woman with the ‘dishonoured’ country is that all members of the ‘enemy’ army are viewed as rapists - not just those who started the war, the politicians, the generals and the exponents of systematic rape in aid of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ There are no individual culprits, but the whole nation, including its women, is culpable (Kesic, 1995).
Rape as an Act of Genocide. - Russell-Brown, Sherrie L. 2003
genocidal rape = particular as well as part of the generic, and its particularlity matters.
ethnic rape as official policy of war in a genocidal campaign for political control.
Rape under orders, not out of control.
‘It is rape under control. It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead’
One side of the debate is concerned w gender disappearing from ‘genocidal rape’, while the other recognizes and deems important its intersectionality
Account of Akayesu and crimes.
Akayesu Judgement clarifies the debate about the ‘overemphasis’ on genocidal rape.
ICTR recognized 1. how sex worked to destroy a ppl; 2. the intersectionality of rape; and 3. the subjectivity of the rape victim in the crime of genocidal rape.
Rape as tool of war, finding that rape can be an actus reus of genocide
ICTR in Akayesu ‘properly’ defined rape, as form of aggression. Likened rape to torture and characterized it as violation of personal dignity.
Rape and sexual violence ‘constitute genocide in the same way as any other act as long as they were committed with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular group, targeted as such.
Tribunal recognised intersectionality - Tutsi women targeted both because they were Tutsi and because the the beliefs and opinions held by Hutus about Tutsi women as women.
‘The rape of Tutsi women was systematic and was perpetrated against all Tutsi women and solely against them’
ICTR also recognised subjectivity of victims - effect of the act on victim is infliction of serious injury and harm.
Rape recently defined as crime against humanity.
MacKinnon, viewed at times as a radical voice, had her description of genocidal rape affirmed by the Akayesu judgement
‘Rape as a Weapon of Genocide’, Genocide Studies and Prevention, 3:3 (2008) - Alison Ruby Reid-Cunningham 2008
l and
psychosocial consequences for individuals, families, and communities. The
physical and emotional sequelae of individual assaults are magnified when rape
is committed on a mass scale, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–1996), Rwanda
(1994), and Darfur, Sudan (2003–present). The victimization of raped women
affects the community through the collective responses of survivors and their families, friends, and neighbors
Forced intercourse and impregnation represent a
symbolic conquest of the woman by the rapist. This conquest becomes generalized to the whole population as survivors, witnesses, families, and communities internalize
rape as an assault on their collective consciousness.
PTSD in rape survivors
Sexual violence is perpetrated against women during ethnic conflict because women
‘‘keep the civilian population functioning’’ through their roles as mothers, wives, and
caretakers.78 The suffering inflicted may cause permanent psychological symptoms
or have social consequences that affect women’s ability to relate, work, or care for their
children.
During war and ethnic conflict, rape acquires a deeper meaning: rapes committed
in war may be intended to destroy the raped woman’s culture or community
When a woman is raped in the context of war, ethnic conflict, or genocide, the
symbolic message to the woman’s community is one of territorial conquest. The culture
has been symbolically ‘‘penetrated’’ by the enemy
The humiliation of a
culture through the systematic violation of women is the primary goal of mass rape
during ethnic conflict
Women and Genocide: Notes on an Unwritten History - Roger W. Smith 1994
Whatever has been written about the history of genocide has been based
mainly on the experiences of men. Yet women’s experiences with genocide
have often differed from those of men in terms of participation, forms of
victimization, and consequences.
Genocide has affected women differently from men in at least three ways:
women have seldom participated directly in genocide, though this has begun to
change in the twentieth century (e.g., in Nazi Germany and Cambodia); women have
been victimized in ways different from men to a large extent (rape and enslavement);3
and the consequences of genocide (incorporation into the perpetrators’ society; or
ostracism of victims of rape, as in Bangladesh) have often been different as well
genocide.22
One can also become involved in genocide through actions that stop short of
direct participation in murder, such as by accepting the “benefits” of the victims’ bodies,
labor, or property.
Frau
Kremer entertained the Nazi hierarchy, accepted as an anniversary present a handbag
made of human skin, tatooed with a rose, and, to while away her time, embroidered
Gute Nacht on the pillowcases
Frau Hoss had numerous prisoner servants, cooks,
seamstresses, and gardeners. The villa at Auschwitz was filled with magnificent furniture
made by the prisoners,
female SS who
supervised the numerous camps for women from 1939 to 1945,
Repeatedly, the memoirs of women who were in Ravensbriick, Majdanek,
Auschwitz, and Belsen, provide evidence, though they do not make the explicit connection,
that it was the more sadistic women, such as Irma Grese, who rose to high
positions in the women’s SS.32
In only her early twenties, she held the power of life
and death over forty thousand women in Auschwitz, and took particular pleasure in
choosing women for both medical experiments and death
women have seldom been directly involved in the
perpetration of genocide. This is due primarily to the demands of patriarchy, wherein
women were regarded as weak and unsuited for making genocidal war on men
Moreover, their sexual and reproductive capacity was too important to men to be risked in
battle.
Women have been perpetrators of genocide, but usually this has been intermittent
and at die direction of men. A high degree of sexism has been associated widi
the roles performed—torturers of males, kidnappers of children, subordinate guards
dealing with women
In significant ways, then, the role of women as participants in genocide has
been quite different from that of males. In two respects, however, it may overlap the
experience of men. The first of these is age-old: moral assent to the total destruction
of one’s enemies.
The second is dangerously contemporary: direct participation on a sustained
basis in the perpetration of genocide. It has become clear that women are capable of
committing genocidal atrocities,
Bureaucratic organization, for example, can distance most persons from the killing, and routinize the tasks that facilitate genocide, dampening moral awareness. In Germany, as Raul Hilberg points out, most bureaucrats “composed memoranda, drew up blueprints, signed correspondence, talked on the telephone, and participated in
conferences.” Yet they could sit at their desks and destroy a whole people.8
Rape Camps as a Means of Ethnic Cleansing: Religious, Cultural, and Ethical Responses to Rape Victims in the Former Yugoslavia - Todd A. Salzman 1998
s in the Bosnia-Herzegovina war.
During this conflict an estimated 20,000 women endured sexual assaults in
the form of torture and rape
In a traditionally patriarchal society, the Serbian government, military, and
Orthodox church have explicitly formulated a perception of the female
gender and its role and function within society. Essentially, the female is
reduced to her reproductive capacities in order to fulfill the overall
objective of Serbian nationalism by producing more citizens to populate the nation
Perhaps the traditional role of the Serbian woman is most clearly depicted
by the Mother of the Jugovici, the epic heroine from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, who, in spite of the death of her nine sons in the battle with the Turks,
did not weep.6 Her courage, self-sacrifice, altruism, and, most of all, her fertility, have been utilized to inspire and serve as a paradigm for Serbian women and their responsibility as mothers of the nation
In October 1992, powerful organs in Serbian society published a document
entitled “Warning,” focusing on demographic issues.8 Signed by the Serbian ruling party, the Serbian Socialist Party (SPS), the Serbian Academy of Arts
and Sciences, and the Serbian Orthodox Church, this document highlighted
the imbalance in terms of growth and renewal of various ethnic groups. In
particular, “Albanians, Muslims and Romans [sic], with their high birth rate,
are beyond rational and human reproduction.”9 The SPS conference
adopted this document, and the Serbian Parliament enacted a resolution
promoting “population renewal,” seeking to stimulate the birth rate in some
areas while suppressing it in others.
In December 1994, Patriarch Pavle, leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, delivered a Christmas message denouncing the “White Plague,” that is, the
low birth rate among Serbian women
As early as 1981, the media reinforced and exploited
Serbian nationalism in its depiction of the uprising of the Kosovo Albanians
seeking autonomy from Serbia.21 Though Serbian forces immediately sup
pressed the uprising, the Serbian people heard of an Albanian genocidal
plot against ethnic Serbs involving various atrocities, including mass rapes
committed against the local Serbian population in Kosovo.2
National television aired what appeared to be Muslims or Croats raping
Serbian women when, in actuality, the scenes showed Serbs raping Muslim
or Croat women.
Milutinovic
was working on a text, “Lying [sic] Violent hands on the Serbian Woman.”27
This document maintained that Muslims and Croats were committing
genocide against the Serbian people.28 One of the most telling citations from
this document deals with the alleged atrocities committed by Muslims
against Serbian women:
By order of the Islamic fundamentalists from Sarajevo, healthy Serbian women
from 17 to 40 years of age are being separated out and subjected to special
treatment. According to their sick plans going back many years, these women
have to be impregnated by orthodox Islamic seeds in order to raise a generation
of janissaries
Rape Camps as a Means of Ethnic Cleansing: Religious, Cultural, and Ethical Responses to Rape Victims in the Former Yugoslavia - Todd A. Salzman 1998, evd of organisation of Serb atrocitiess
tly, documentation exists substantiating the claim of
a Serbian military policy to ethnically cleanse Bosnia-Herzegovina, and
designating rape as a specific means of attaining this goal. This policy is
clearly spelled out in the so-called RAM plan written by Serb army officers
around the end of August 19
In their final report, the Commission of Experts appointed by the United
Nations to investigate allegations of rape and sexual assault in the former
Yugoslavia speculated that camp commanders had direct control over those
who committed rapes within these camps, indicating that the commanders
could have halted the practice and punished the perpetrators if they chose.47
The Commission cited as evidence the fact that during the height of the
reported rapes (April to November 1992) the media attention gradually
grew from a few reports in March 1992 to a high of 535 stories in January
1993 and 529 in February 1993.48 In the months following these media
reports, the number of reported cases dropped dramatically.
The correlation
between increased media attention and the decrease in reported cases of
rape, the Commission speculated, “would indicate that commanders could
control the alleged perpetrators if they wanted to
Perhaps the strongest indication of a Serbian systematic policy is reflected in
the five patterns of rape documented by the United Nations Commission of Experts.
50 These patterns required logistical coordination, especially within
rape camps where rape was used to impregnate Muslim and Catholic Croat
women.
In the first pattern, sexual violence occurred with looting and intimida
tion before widespread fighting broke out in a particular region.51 As ethnic
tensions grew, those in control of the local government would encourage
paramilitaries, individuals, or gangs of men to initiate a policy of terrorizing
local residents. These people would break into homes, steal property, and
torture and sexually assault the inhabitants, oftentimes in front of other
family members or in public.52
The second pattern of sexual violence occurred during fighting. In the
process of attacking a town or village, the forces would rape or sexually
assault some women in their homes.53 Once the town was secured, the
forces would gather the surviving population and divide them according to
sex and age, selecting some women for rape or sexual assaults.54 The forces
then transported the remaining population to detention facilities. The
psychological impact of these atrocities is evident. Through fear and
intimidation, victims and witnesses would be hesitant to return to the scene
of such events.
The third pattern of sexual violence occurred in detention facilities or
other sites referred to as refugee “collection centers.”55 After the population
had been divided, men of fighting age were either tortured and executed or
sent off to work camps while women were generally sent to separate camps.
There, soldiers, camp guards, paramilitaries, and civilians raped or sexually
assaulted many of the women
A fourth pattern of sexual violence occurred in rape camps established
in buildings such as hotels, schools, restaurants, hospitals, factories, peace
time brothels, or even animal stalls in barns, fenced pens, and auditori
ums.59 No one was exempt from the punishment in these camps. Frequently,
the Serbian captors told women that they were trying to impregnate them. In
so doing, they would create “Chetnik babies” who would kill Muslims when
they grew up. Furthermore, “they repeatedly said their President had
ordered them to do this.”60
A fifth pattern of sexual violence occurred in “bordello” camps.6 Rather
than a form of punishment, women were held in these camps to provide sex
for men returning from the front lines. While many of the women in the
other camps were eventually exchanged for other civilian prisoners, these women were generally killed.65
rightly points out that although the five patterns of rape
delineated by the Commission exemplify various practices of sexual assault,
they do not clearly indicate the genocidal nature and purpose of those
assaults
Beverly Allen
rightly points out that although the five patterns of rape delineated by the Commission exemplify various practices of sexual assault, they do not clearly indicate the genocidal nature and purpose of those assaults
9 Consequently, she labels as “genocidal rape” the Serbian military
policy of rape for the purpose of genocide and ethnic cleansing, distinguish
ing three forms of this policy. First, prior to the arrival of the official Serbian
military (Yugoslav Army or Bosnian Serb forces), Serb militias, civilians, or
Chetniks would enter a village and terrorize the inhabitants, especially
through the use of public rape and sexual assault.70 Frequently the women
recognized their assailants as neighbors, law enforcement personnel, or
other members of the community. Recognition seemed an important part of
Serbian policy. The persecuted would be less likely to return to their towns and villages if their assailants were local inhabitants
The second form of genocidal rape occurred in Serb concentration
camps where Bosnian-Herzegovinan and Croatian women (and sometimes
men)73 were randomly chosen to be raped. The victim was often murdered
after the sexual assault.74
The third form of genocidal rape occurred in “rape/death camps.”
Bosnian-Herzegovinan women were arrested and imprisoned in these
camps and systematically raped for an extended period of time by Serb,
Bosnian Serb, and Croatian Serb soldiers, Bosnian Serb militias, and
Chetniks.75 Intended to impregnate
Todd A. Salzman 1998, aftermath of rape
Frequently a stark contrast develops between religious ideologies and the
actual responses of Muslims and Catholics to rape survivors. Within
Muslim, Catholic, and Serbian cultures, victims of rape tend to experience
alienation in varying degrees.
jects such as gun barrels, constitute aspects of genocide as well.
Further genocidal consequences of the rapes arise through the reduc
tion of birth rates in non-Serbian societies. For example, the cultural
response to women who have been raped could result in the prevention of
births: unmarried women will not be married within the community, or
those who are married may be rejected by their husbands. In either case,
reproduction is impaired within a specific community. In ca
Todd A. Salzman 1998, gap in international law
Although international law has clear guidelines for prosecuting
those guilty of rape, the intention to rape for the purpose of impregnation,
though implicit under genocide, is not explicitly stated as a separate crime
under international law. This is a gap that requires an amendment given the
atrocities in Bosnia: rape, forced impregnation, and genocide.140
Rape and Rape Avoidance in Ethno-National Conflicts: Sexual Violence in Liminalized States - Robert M. Hayden 2000
that mass rape is likely when such conflicts take place during the partition of a territory and its
population, when the state itself is liminal, both its territory and control over it uncertain. In conflicts in which the state is
not itself threatened, and thus groups feel that they will continue to coexist, there is some evidence that rape is avoided,
even when murder is accepted. However, such instances of rape avoidance are largely unstudied, in large part because of
the focus on the violence of mass rape. Further, this focus on violence tends toward classifying all sexual relations between
groups whose members have participated in mass rape as improper, thus depriving women who may not wish to rejoin
their natal groups of agency
Neither of these approaches, “global feminist” and
“genocidal rape,” gives much real consideration to the circumstances under which mass rape has taken place,’2 and none at all to those instances where mass rape might have
been expected but did not occur. Furthermore, both schools tend to see rape in Bosnia as the result of an intentional campaign directed by Bosnian Serb authorities. While there are reports of some direct invitations to soldiers to rape prisoners on the part of local commanders,3 however, it is improbable that any general authority actually ordered,
or directed, rape.
In regard to Bosnia, even the indictment before the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of Radovan Karadii6 for responsibility for rapes
committed by Bosnian Serb forces rests primarily on the concept of command responsibility, that is, responsibility
for the criminal actions of a subordinate when he “knew or had reason to know that the subordinate was about to com
mit such acts or had done so and the superior failed to take the necessary and responsible measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof.”‘4
larly, in the
former Yugoslavia, the Sandiak region of Serbia and Montenegro bordering Bosnia has a large population of
Slavic Muslims, who now call themselves Bosniaks. In 1992-93, while mass sexual violence was taking place very close by in Bosnia, these Bosniaks faced discrimination and harassment, and some were forced to leave their homes (see, e.g., Human Rights Watch / Helsinki 1994; Humanitarian Law Center 1995). Yet it is striking that even when reports of violence by Serbs against Muslims
are reported, there are few if indeed any reports of sexual violence in this region
When rape avoidance is put into the analysis of ethnic or nationalist conflict, the meaning of mass rape itself be
comes more clear: it is a tool used to partition permanently an already consciously heterogenous population at the time
when the territory in which these people(s) live is being divided physically. Thus mass rape is actually a corollary of
the liminality of the state when a heterogenous territory is being sundered into homogenous parts. Looked at in this way, a number of assumptions about mass rape are brought into question, such as that rapists are driven by hatred. To
the contrary, many rapists themselves are conflicted, but
their acts are meant to induce hatred in the victims.
The implications of these findings are disturbing. First,
it is unlikely that prosecuting rapists after the fact will pre
vent future occurrences of mass rape during partition. Further, the post-Bosnia linkage of mass rape with genocide seems to accept the very premises of the rapists and thus to render future cohabitation of the peoples in question less likely. Finally, the understandable humanistic concern with the violence of rape leads investigators not only to ignore instances of rape avoidance, but even to be very skeptical of consensual sexual relationships and even of marriages between members of the groups in question. In this way, a focus on rape, violence, and putative justice may
frequently deny agency to women victims themselves, thus denying to many women, and to many men, the chance to reconstruct their lives after their countries and communities have been sundered by ethno-national violence
From atrocity to data: historiographies of rape in Former Yugoslavia and the gendering of genocide - R. Lindsey 10/2002
The early conclusion that the rapes were part
of a genocide, perpetrated by Serbs against Muslims, led to a demand for physical
evidence to prove that the rapes were taking place, that they were systematic and
were ethnically driven. The result has been an overarching emphasis on evidence
that has dominated the description, analysis and theorizing of the rapes and has led
to the marginalizing and silencing of a range of voices, particularly of those working
with survivor communities and the survivors themselves. The evidence-led debate
has created a genre in which there has been an almost casual use of survivor
testimony by academics to illustrate the types of violence that have taken place. This
appropriation of survivors’ stories has degraded survivor testimony and led to a
readership habituated to narratives of violence. The dominance of evidence and
proof in writing on rape has fossilized the debate on sexual violence and genocide. If
these debates are to be revived, new theoretical directions need to be developed
Lindsey argues that a feminist analysis of the social structures within societies that
have experienced mass sexual violence alongside genocide can provide a new and enlightening contribution to the broader debate on gender and genocide
News reprtage and investigative reports form non-human rights organizations seen as less reliable than human rights literature/ collected testimonies.
What the historical picture has specifically neglected, when examining the
debate on rape, is the role that was played by Former Yugoslavian women’s
NGOs. These groups often acted as the gatekeepers to survivors’ testimony
and, through their therapeutic work with survivors, were well placed to theorize
on the rapes.
The rejection by the international feminist community of NGOs that were arguing that rape was part of a broader genocide against their ethnic group
had some noticeable negative effects. The Serbian NGOs fared particularly
badly in their claim that Serbian women were being raped en masse
The international
vilification of Serbians as the ‘bad guys’ meant that Serbian women
NGOs with nationalist leanings gained little credence with this argument
outside their own ethnic and nationalist networks
R. Lindsey 10/2002, critique of Jones
e, Jones contested feminists’ narrow foci on the rapes within both the
media and academic theory. He argued that ‘. . . feminism is in some respects
constrained by its normative commitments and by the distinct standpoint
by which these commitments arrive’;30 that is, feminism has its limitations
because it derives from women’s experience. In the case of Former Yugoslavia,
he argued that the focus on the rapes within the genocide debate had occluded
male (in particular younger, ‘battle-age males’) experiences of violence
Although Jones’s argument is tenable (and there are a number of feminists
that concur that the genocidal killing of men should be studied on its own
‘merits’), it is also extremely problematic because of his insistence in placing
his argument in opposition to the rape debate. The effect on Jones’s own
argument is to make it seem narrow, tendentious and uninformed. It forces
the reader to imagine that the feminist debate on rape focuses solely on genocide
while at the same time excluding all other victims of genocide. There is
no room for an inclusive or sophisticated feminist reading of rape or genocide
In more recent work and in his work with the NGO Gendercide Watch,
Jones corrects this imbalance by removing his focus from the rape debate.31
s, Jones’s 1994
article remains on public record as a commentary on the rapes in Former
Yugoslavia. Its tendentiousness, its opposition to the feminist debate on rape,
gives it an appeal to the anti-feminist, and promotes an inter-gender tension
My criticism of Jones’s work lies not only with his championing of male
victimhood in the face of a perceived feminist hegemony, but also with his use
of ‘borrowed’ testimony to illustrate gender-specific genocide
the
work of Stiglmayer and MacKinnon is also particularly problematic in terms
of both ethics and style. What causes me concern is that, since their work
tends to be used as primary texts by new researchers, it may have established
a genre in terms of the way in which future writers will use testimony when
commenting on mass rape and genocide
R. Lindsey 10/2002, critique of MacKinnon
little understanding of the mental health of her respondents,
or consideration of the ethics in gathering testimony
MacKinnon describes, in horrific detail, the pornographic
scripting of rapes, the positions women were made to adopt by the perpetrators,
the language used and the filming of rapes
effect is one of voyeuristic hard-core porn, ironically closer in style to the
pornography that MacKinnon lambasts than to an academic text.
it has been deemed academically acceptable for a number of other academics
to use graphic testimonies of violence almost routinely in their texts. I suspect
that time and the location of these events has much to do with this phenomenon.
The immediacy of the events, the fact that they were taking place even
as we read about them, gave them a news-room urgency that suspended normal
rules of style, of what is acceptable and unacceptable, pressuring academics
and lay readers alike into engaging with these texts
The difficult nature of
rape testimony, its overarching sexual theme, exacerbates the problems for
those who are reporting/commenting/writing on the rapes. How does one
present a graphic testimony of sexual violence without subscribing to voyeurism,
and without privileging the perpetrator? Should one be attempting to
do this?
This tension between the academic and the survivor is foregrounded by Joanna
Reilly et al. who observe, with regard to the Holocaust, that: ‘Many survivors
fear, not without reason, that the Holocaust could, in the hands of insensitive
academics, lose its human dimension
R. Lindsey 10/2002, advocating a progressive feminist analysis
e, the almost casual
over-use of testimony has led to a point in the development of theory at
which testimony no longer needs to be used. Instead it can be alluded to, or
it is present through its absence, because the writer and the reader know
what these testimonies would say if they were used.
reading rape solely as
genocide encourages a view that women will always be targetted for rapeduring genocide. It does little to challenge or prevent this view, and it does little for the rehabilitation of a survivor.
r. Meznarić’s focus broke away from
genocide and ethnicity to a consideration of inter-gender relations. She
looked to the example of the ‘Kosovo rapes’, a rape myth that flourished in
Kosovo in the 1980s
Mirjana Morokvašić, who is also a local academic, concurred with the
need for a feminist analysis that looked at the background of Former Yugoslavian
gender relations.46 Developing Meznarić’s argument, she linked the
raping of women to the growth of nationalism in Former Yugoslavia during
the 1980s. Morokvašić argued that nationalism had an effect on local perceptions
of women, whereby there was an increase in overt sexism and an
‘othering’ of women. She argued: ‘Turning rape exclusively into a crime against
an ethnic community obscures the fact that women are raped because they
are both the female “Other” and the “ethnic Other”
7 According to this reading
rape is motivated by misogyny engendered by a nationalist, masculine
discourse. The sex of the survivor/victim is as important to the perpetrator as
her ethnicity
Morokvašić’s social structures were
much broader; she attempted to identify what it was in pre-genocide Former
Yugoslavian society that made men rape women
The work of Meznarić, Morokvašić and Ramet represents a starting point
in looking beyond proving that the rapes took place and were sexually or
ethnically motivated. It initiates an debate on the role of the public and private
in shaping the citizens of Former Yugoslavia who comprised the
perpetrators and victims of rape, those who colluded, those who ignored and
those who resisted and contested these events. It represents an intellectual
route that attempts to explain violence rather than prove and describe it
Crossing the River Drina: Bosnian Rape Camps, Turkish Impalement, and Serb Cultural Memory - Lynda E. Boose 09/2002
Within Serbian culture, the excessively invested image of male rape/
impalement evokes an overdetermined memory of historical subjugation
and an enraged sense of masculine humiliation that together suggest why
the patterns of violence in this war were so especially those of rape and
genital mutilation. In a particularly infamous incident from Omarska that
came to trial at the Hague but ended in acquittal because the witness
became too terrified to testify, Serb guards forced two Muslim prisoners
to hold a third man upright in the position of the crucified Christ while
a fourth prisoner was made to bite off his testicles (Vranic 1996, 292).22
Even the obsessive pursuit of a “greater Serbia” that has driven Serb
national policy for centuries suggests phallic insecurities,
As Muslim men in captured villages were lined up with their hands over
their heads, awaiting probable execution, they were made to sing the Serb
anthem, which opens with the defiant assertion: “[He] lies who says that
Serbia is small.”
Given the determining power of the impalement myth and the way it
encodes the Turkish conqueror’s rape of Serbian masculinity, it might seem that rape of the enemy male rather than female would more logically
accomplish reciprocity. Indeed, testimonial evidence suggests that, in addition
to genital mutilation, the rape of Muslim men may also have been
frequent. In a relatively small sample of interviews conducted in refugee
camps over a few months, Montenegrin journalist Seada Vranic found six
men willing to admit that they had been raped, and she suspected that the numbers were actually higher (1996, 292).24 But even within the
reports of male rape, there is a pattern that suggests that the more psychologically
satisfying form of Serb revenge was not the direct, unmediated
one but one that was buffered by symbolic structures and displaced into an elaborated triangulation.
while some Muslim men were no doubt raped by their guards,
the favored sexual performance of dominance and humiliation was one
that again removed the Serb aggressor from the ambivalent site of homosexual
desire. Instead of physically performing the role of rapist themselves,
Serbs forced Muslim males to rape other Muslim men in shows in
which “camp guards compel[led] inmates to engage in sexual acts with
each other. It was the favourite form of entertainment of the camp staff
in Manjaca and the commander of the camp, along with his staff, seldom
failed to attend these performances” (Vranic 1996, 292)
What I have argued is that Serb rape of Bosniak women
should be theorized within a culture-specific explanation and recognized
as a projection that has its origins inside of the powerfully invested narratives
of Serb cultural memory. And what I have also argued is that within
that storehouse lies the humiliating memory of rape by the Turk. Like
both of the collective and triangulated displacements above, the widespread
rape of “Turk” women in this war should also be understood as
a displacement of the unmediated vengeance of male-male rape.
, despite its
substitution of the targeted victim, it works as commensurate reciprocation,
and it works precisely because, in constructing women’s bodies as
property signifying the honor of the male community, patriarchal culture
has produced the equation that makes this substitution possible
the more patriarchal the culture, the more vulnerable it becomes, because all the more likely are the women within it to become targets for enemy
rape
Surfacing Children: Limitations of Genocidal Rape Discourse - R. Charli Carpenter 2000
Strictly speaking, I would concur that forced impregnation and forced
maternity are crimes solely against rape victims. But defining rape as
genocidal primarily on the basis of forced impregnation conflates this
violation of women’s rights with ethnic genocide, a complex manipulation
of identity and group cohesion that involves many affirmative acts beyond
that of the rape and conception itself. Moreover, the act of forced
impregnation potentially brings to bear at least two victimized parties with
specific and at times inconsistent claims to rights. This article has argued
that children of war rape have not been rightfully identified as human rights
victims or even as variables in an ongoing relocation of ethnic identity in
the former Yugoslavia
Instead, “forced impregnation” was framed as a crime against women
only through careless definition, through failing to account for children, and through identifying the children of the rapes with the perpetrators rather
than the victimized group. To reverse this trend I have attempted to situate
war-rape orphans in the existing framework of the Geneva and Genocide
Conventions. They emerge as victims of human rights abuses and war crimes. It seems possible as well to identify them as victims of crimes
against humanity and genocide, but so doing complicates the framework
being used to address their sit
Rape in Kosovo: Masculinity and Serbian Nationalism - Wendy Bracewell 10/2000
The alliance between MiloSevid’s nationalist politics and a particular ideal of
masculinity was not just a matter of style - it had consequences. Making
heroic masculinity into a guarantee of individual and national worth was a
first step towards war
- well before the first shots were fired in Slovenia,
these steps were taken in Kosovo. Events there, and particularly the furore
over rape, contributed to the belief that Serbia’s problems could (and
should) be addressed by force. The suffering of women and children and
affronted masculine honour required immediate action, not calm negotiation
or cooperation. RadoS Smiljkovie, one of MiloSeviC’s supporters in the
Belgrade branch of the party, made this point in 1987 in a response to
criticism of burgeoning nationalism in Serbia: ‘Calls for patience, for
waiting, for cool heads are counterproductive in a situation when heads are
bloody and when the floors are heaving . . . with the bodies of raped girls,
women and old ladies’ (quoted in TaSiC 1994: 100). Albanian violence
justified violence in return; this was the only way of restoring a damaged
masculine and national honour. As early as 1988, Serbian nationalists were
openly declaring war on the Albanians in Kosovo.
? Events in Kosovo certainly reinforced the idea that sexual violence
could be a effective instrument of politics; and rape an activity in which
men might demonstrate their nation’s power and masculinity. When in 1986
Serbs from Kosovo had threatened: ‘Let them rape; we can rape too’, they
had been quoted in the Serbian press with no hint of condemnation for
proposing to retaliate in kind, since such a provocation demanded equal or
greater retaliation from the victims. ‘If they keep on raping, there’s no
alternative but for us to respond with the same measure’
Even without Kosovo, soldiers
would still have raped. But events in Kosovo did create an atmosphere in
which rape as an instrument of nationalist politics was made thinkable
Well
before the outbreak of war, rape had been redefined as an aspect of national
conflict, rather than a sexual crime. And the lesson was that this tactic -
however ‘un-European’ - brought results: in Serbian eyes, nationalist rape had contributed to the success of Albanian ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Kosovo.
the persistent failure of the military and
political authorities to investigate or punish cases of rape committed by
their troops suggests that it was at the very least tacitly condoned
Data
from the SOS telephone helpline for women in Belgrade suggests that
national conflict and war was accompanied by a general increase in violence
against women in the family, not just in mixed marriages (where national
difference provided an ostensible provocation) (Zajovic 1993: 54-56, 94).
Linking the ideology of the nation to ideas of motherhood and female
submissiveness, of male dominance and power, and of uncompromising
heterosexuality reversed the official socialist ideology of gender equality,
reinforcing male privilege, eroding what gains women had made under
socialism, and marginalising men and women who did not conform to the
imperatives of nation and gender.
Both gender and nation are best seen as relational identities, not
reflections of a natural or immanent essence but created through a process
of highlighting difference. In the discourses around rape in Kosovo, and in
the ensuing struggles over the Serbian question, nationalist ideologues
defined the Serb nation in relation to a series of ‘others’, understood in
terms of both gender and nation - relationships which had implications for
social relations.
Ideas about what it meant to be a man
were an important resource in the competition to define and control Serbian
nationalism, and they were used by both men and women. In turn, laments
over Serbian dignity and honour helped reinforce particular understandings
of masculinity, mapping out what was and what was not appropriate
behaviour for a Serb man - in particular, legitimating and encouraging
violence as a way of recuperating national dignity and masculine honour.
But this was an ideological proposition, not a description of social or
cultural reality; it required a good deal of labour to remake Serb men in line
with the patriotic image and to mobilise Serb heroes for war.
the
level of electoral support for ‘Serb heroes’ such as Vojislav SeSelj indicates
the continued potency of the equation of nation, manliness and militarism.
Attention to the interaction of gender and nation in this particular case
suggests the advantages and possibilities of looking at nationalism and war
in a framework that goes beyond traditional political analysis of nation and
state-building on the one hand, and essentialist gender categories on the
other - that instead takes as its starting point the assumptions of the Serb in
the Kosovo cafe, that political conflicts and understandings of gender are part of the same whole.
The trauma of war rape: A comparative view on the Bosnian conflict and the Greek civil war - Riki Van Boeschoten 03/2003
It argues that conceptions about accountability and expected gender roles may
lead social actors to commit atrocities that transgress the moral codes of their own society, while condemning their
victims to silence. On the other hand, a change in the political context may undermine the impunity enjoyed by the
perpetrators and ultimately lead war rape victims to break their silence and bear witness
. In Maria’s (greek civil war) case, we
can identify four factors that helped her to speak out and which may be extrapolated to other
interview situations. First is the importance of “neutral outsiders” in the role of interviewers. Second is the specific timing of the interview. As I have shown in this article, both the
general context of the Bosnian conflict and the more immediate impact of the child refugee
reunion in Skopje played an important role in triggering Maria’s most distressing memories.
Third is the importance of a self-initiated trauma-processing in the period before the
interview. Finally, we cannot stress enough how important it is to take the whole life story,
instead of jumping immediately to the most traumatic aspects of the memory
the silence of war rape victims in former Yugoslavia is clearly not only a survival strategy, but is also linked to the cultural codes of their communities or, even worse, to fear of reprisal
