Gender Matters

Within each process of genocide, there is a penchant for targeting groups that cannot resist the oppression laid upon them. As such, the role of gender in the perpetration, experience and aftermath of these processes is vastly overlooked. This project looks over three major case studies to better understand gender within the process of genocide; China, Myanmar and Rwanda. Using the lenses of gender studies, sociology and history, we seek to understand the methodology behind gendercide as well as the social, malicious and religious motivations behind it. Within China, we look at the Uyghur population, a culturally Muslim minority which has been targeted since 2014, and has had numerous cases of women being sterilized in order to prevent the culture of the Uyghur people from spreading. In Myanmar is a similar case, the culturally Muslim Rohingya people have been targeted for their Hijra group, which consists of trans individuals. The genocide in Myanmar also targets the boys and men of the Rohingya, mutilating their genitalia, forcing themselves upon their partners or assaulting them outright. Within the Rwandan genocide, women were targeted as subjects of sexual assault, with approximately 49% of the women experiencing rape at the hands of the perpetrators. Using these instances, this project seeks to answer the question “Does gender matter?” within the context of genocide studies. Using these metrics, we explore the roles of gender and cross reference them with numerous genocidal processes in which they were present to determine the answer. In looking into the roles that gender plays within genocide, we can better understand our approach to the matter while not only bolstering our ability to address it in the future, but possibly preventing it outright