Role of Gender in the Rwandan Genocide

The podcast explores the role of gender in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It discusses gender roles in genocides, the targeting of men as victims, the involvement of women as victims and perpetrators, sexual violence, and the gendered aftermath. Men were targeted initially due to their traditional roles, while women experienced sexual violence. Women also participated in the genocide, motivated by fear, hate propaganda, or power. Sexual violence was widespread, with AIDS further complicating the situation. The aftermath saw changes in marriage patterns and an increase in AIDS cases. Gender stereotypes played a significant role in the genocide. Hi, welcome to this podcast. My name is Lucy Cameron, and today I'm looking at the question what role did gender play in the 1994 Rwandan genocide? To fully explore this, I will first give an overview of gender and genocides generally, and of the traditional gender roles in pre-genocide Rwanda. I will then focus on the role of men and women as victims and perpetrators in the genocide, looking at the role of sexual violence in the Rwandan genocide. Finally, I will look at the gendered aftermath of the genocide. The two key features of this podcast are the gender targeting of men in the genocide and the involvement of women as victims and perpetrators. I will now look at an overview of gender in genocides. Genocide is a term coined by Anne-Marie Warren in 1987, in Genocide the Implications of Sex Selection. In this, she looked at infanticide and sex selection, and how they affect women in genocide. However, Adam Jones looked at this and argued that genocide is broader and should address the gendered experience of both women and men, as, while it is not always recognised, men in genocides are often not the default victim because of their gender, but are targeted because of their gender. He looks at Deborah Willis's evaluation of witch hunts and occasions in the 20th century where this has been seen. It can be seen that in more recent genocides, those being hunted are symbolic father figures, or figures of authority, being men. This is because in genocide, it is often framed as a battle against a dangerous enemy. Thus, the perpetrators of a genocide will first target men who have made up the armies and have gendered traditional roles of aggression and threat. This targeting is sometimes done to destroy a community, such as in the Balkans and Bangladesh, but it can also be done to acclimatise a population to killing and is thus followed by an all-encompassing genocide of both genders, such as in the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust. If we now look at participation of civilians in genocide, it is seen that people often participate in line with their gender roles, such as women do so in smaller numbers and more in line with their gender roles being looting and forming and supporting their genocidal husbands, whereas men participate in line with their gender roles being the more aggressive killing. It can be seen that in genocides, men typically do make up the larger portion of the death toll. However, women's lasting trauma of sexual violence is less addressed. This is because, while women and men often experience different forms of victimisation, it's harder to tally the victims of rape or quantify that pain felt. It is therefore argued that more work needs to be done about how we count the victims of genocide. I will now give you an overview of traditional gender roles in Rwanda pre-genocide. Pre-genocide Rwanda was a very patriarchal society where women were the inferior and subjugated gender. They were economically and socially dependent on men and their families, with one in five experiencing domestic abuse. To set the groundwork for the victimisation of women, particularly through sexual violence, there was a long-standing myth which was tied to the hermetic theory brought by the colonial powers of the more desirable sexuality of Tutsi women over Hutu women, with Hutu propaganda harnessing this, creating the image of the Tutsi temptress. This laid the groundwork for the motives behind Hutu perpetrators, both male and female. The propaganda made sex with Tutsi women more desirable, but also described Tutsi women as feeling superior to Hutu men, resulting in Hutu men raping Tutsi women while using ethnic hate speech. Prior to the genocide, there was also a gender crisis for men, particularly young men. Because of the patriarchal society, men had a lot of pressure to protect and provide for women. However, due to the large population and small land mass, there was a land crisis, with 305 people per square kilometre before the genocide. But without land, men could not marry, thus there was a gender crisis. This set the groundwork for motives during the genocide, as Hutu propaganda capitalised on this, framing inter-Humway work as masculine for those men who felt they could not fulfil their masculine duties. But also, many Hutu men used the genocide to take land from their Tutsi neighbours. I'm now going to look at men being both victims and perpetrators. We've already looked at men being the main target of the genocide, especially initially. Women were always killed during the genocide from the start, and there was also a shift into a much higher rate of killing of women later on. But especially initially, men were the original target, due to the propaganda of the RPF and the threat of more aggressive masculine Tutsi men through that propaganda, in the way to acclimatise the population to this killing. It's also due to the fact that due to those gender stereotypes, Tutsi men often put themselves between their Tutsi women and children, and the genocidaires, the perpetrators, thus being killed at a higher rate. If we now look at the perpetrators, there were varying levels of willingness in those males who participated in the genocide. So there was the large group of youthful militia, who were often young men who had moved to urban areas, due to this earlier spoken about gender crisis, without land, who were targeted by huge propaganda and initiated into gangs, harnessing this pathological machismo, tapping into their traditional male roles. These groups often got very out of hand for those in control at the top, and it's been questioned how well the government and those in control would have been able to pull them back and subdue them had the RPF not stopped them. Other men were driven by the propaganda and the fear of the RPF, going all the way back to the resentment from the colonial era, where Hutus resented the Tutsis for being placed above them. This was widely believed and spread mainly by the radio and the media. Some of these men, however, abandoned the genocide when it switched from the initial targeting of men to all of Tutsi's women, children, elderly, because they could no longer see how they posed that threat that was earlier spread about just Tutsi men. Others were forced and intimidated by the interwaham way with threats on their own lives, on their family's lives, or maybe those that they were protecting or keeping hidden. It is thus seen that there was a varying level of participation within the male perpetrators. I'm now going to look at the role of women as perpetrators and victims. So the main defining and unique feature to the Rwandan genocide is the removal of barriers to the involvement of women as perpetrators and also as victims. As we've already seen, there was an evolution during the genocide into the increased killing of Tutsi women. Adam Jones argues that while there was definitely a targeting of Tutsi women as individuals, particularly through sexual violence, the majority of the killing of women was through root and branch killings where groups of Tutsis were being targeted, not just women. It can be seen that there's a disagreement about the amount of Hutu women who participated in the murdering of Tutsis. However, this was certainly a larger portion than is often seen. One univert officer stated in 1996, I had seen a war before but I had never seen a woman carrying a baby on her back kill another woman with a baby on her back. Hogg looks at the participation of women separating between those so-called ordinary women and those at the top orchestrating the genocide. They argue that while some women's participation was still more in line with their traditional gender roles as is seen generally in genocides, there were many who crossed this boundary and were actively involved in the planning and execution of killings. Looking at the motivations for the participation of ordinary women, many cited fear. This is fear from the inter-Rwandan way due to their vulnerability as women or fear of those they protected or their family. While this is sometimes credible, it is clear that some women cited this trying to use their gender status to evade responsibility. Others stated hate propaganda as motivation. This is propaganda about the RPF and the threat to Tutsi men, but also the propaganda that they've been fed about the Tutsi temptress. Many of the women who have power and were later charged with category one offences also use their female status to try and evade punishment. Those such as Agatha Kinzinger, the former wife of President Habyarimana, Pauline Nyemashihiko, the first woman convicted of genocide by the UN court, and also Euphrosy Kamakamu, a female conciliar. Thus it can be seen that a unique and significant figure to the Rwandan genocide was the involvement of women as perpetrators and also as victims. I'm now going to look at sexual violence in the genocide. Genocidal rape looks at rape as a tool of ethnic cleansing. While it is sometimes contested that this can be counted as genocidal when not followed by murder, this is indeed in line with the UN Convention genocide definition. This is being the causing of serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group, the inflicting of conditions on the group to bring about physical destruction, or the imposing of measures to prevent birth in the group. In Rwanda, sexual violence was committed on an extremely large scale, with it being stated that rape was a rule and its absence was the exception. Over the 12 weeks, there were roughly 250,000 to 500,000 occurrences. Unlike in some genocides, rape and sexual servitude was often followed by murder. The sexual violence in Rwanda was made more destructive with the presence of AIDS in the rape. At the start of the genocide, 35% of Rwandan soldiers were HIV positive. Some of these deliberately infected their victims, creating long-standing issues. While sexual violence was not unique to women, it is hard to quantify the number of men who experienced it because of their unwillingness to come forward due to traditional male stereotypes. I will finally look at the aftermath of the genocide on gender. After the genocide, it was frequently stated that the country had become a country of women. The Shuttered Lives Report stated that 70% of the population were female and 50% of households were now headed by women. However, looking deeper at these statistics, it appears that this is not quite true. These statistics were heavily exaggerated and also included Hutu men who fled the country and were later returned. It is also not understood that this cannot just relate to Tutsi men being murdered. As pre-genocide, the Tutsi made up 8-12% of the population. Thus, had all Tutsi men been murdered, this would still not have resulted in these statistics. The number is more thought to be 54% female. Adam Jones highlights two effects seen on gender after the genocide. The first is changes in patterns in marriage and cohabitation. While polygamy is illegal in Rwanda, it has increased and become normalised due to the disproportionate number of men to women. This leads to the second effect, which is the increase in AIDS due to the sharing of men which exacerbated the spread. Through looking at the role of gender in genocide through these themes, it is clear that gender stereotypes played a large factor in the groundwork and actions of the victims and perpetrators. Male traditional roles established men as the main genocidaires and victims. However, while many women participated in line with their female roles, many also crossed this tradition and participated in the genocide itself. This being one of the most significant factors of genocide. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I hope it taught you about the role of gender in the Rwandan genocide.