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Genocide

During the 20th century, most state violence was directed toward the state's own citizens. One contributing factor to this unnerving statistic is genocide, the systematic killing by the state of a community or social group. The term genocide was coined during World War II, but it is an ancient crime. Sadly, though, 20th-century genocides witnessed an increased capacity for state killing, and for the first time, included women as both perpetrators and victims.

The legal definition of genocide is contained in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, ratified in December 1948. Article 2 of the convention makes genocide an international crime to attempt to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group by killing members of the group, causing the group members serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions meant to bring about the group's physical destruction or preventing births, or forcibly transferring children from the group to another group.

Genocide is prohibited during times of war or peace. Other articles of the convention deal with the conditions under which the international community must intervene to protect lives. Thus, unlike many other international laws, when genocide is occurring, the international system of states, through the United Nations, has a duty to act. This entry describes the relationship of gender, women, and genocide.

The Study of Gender and Genocide

At the end of World War II, genocide studies slowly evolved into an academic discipline. By the 1980s, centers for the study of genocide were located in universities around the world. The research is propelled by the need to understand past genocides and, consequently, to record survivor's testimonies and to preserve archive materials, but also to prevent future genocides and to intervene to stop genocides once started.

The study of gender and genocide dates to the 1980s. Feminist genocide scholars, particularly Holocaust scholars, have shown that how we teach and come to understand genocides are based largely on male survivors' accounts and written by male scholars. Feminist scholars point out that male's testimonies exclude women's understandings of issues such as rape, survival strategies, or pregnancy. And missing from scholarly accounts are women's testimonials, diaries, and other forms of written and oral testimony. Thus, feminist genocide scholars seek to show how and why women's experiences of genocide differ from those of men and in so doing broaden understanding of the design and prosecution of genocides, and the conditions of survival and death.

Women and Genocide

In the 20th century, women's roles in genocide changed from nonparticipation and protection from murder, to perpetrators and victims. Before the 20th century, women rarely participated in the planning or execution of genocides, partly because women were barred from military service. But women's reproductive role, the view that they were both weak and dependent, was the basis for their protection from mass murder in war and in peace. However, women historically were never spared forms of sexual assault although systematic rape of women during genocide was unique to the last century.

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