In a matter of moments, what could be defined as a peaceful procession could turn into indescribable violence. Humans that were once seen as humans, have their humanity forcibly stripped from them and are reduced to objects. The perpetrators of this violence are interested in furthering the ideals of their state and establishing themselves as superior. The quote directly supplies evidence of their goals; “What had been a procession of normal human beings became a stumbling horde of dust-covered skeletons… still prodded on and on by the whips and clubs and bayonets of their executioners.” The violences of genocide, as described in the quote, can be further enforced under the context of gendercide. Though not widely discussed, gendercide is a …show more content…
Ordinary genocide does not have a specific gender target, it targets all people of a marginalized group. Though gendercide is different from genocide, gendercide can still be present while genocide is occurring. Furthermore, gendercide can vary in the context of other genocides. Gendercide can be overt like it was in the Armenian genocide or it can be covertly performed in ways such as social death of a gender group. Gendercide was carried out against men during the Armenian genocide that began in 1915. Men who were labelled as ‘battle-ready’ by the state, were sent to serve in the military. Men who didn’t go to the military were sent to labor camps. Men who did not fit in either category were executed. These strategies implemented and enforced by the state effectively eliminated the Armenian male gender group. Gendercide does not have to be openly overt as it was in the Armenian genocide. Gendercide can exist in a variety of ways. According to the article Genocide and Social Death by Claudia Card, social death is “ [a] loss of social vitality is loss of identity and thereby [causes a loss] of meaning for one's existence.” Social death is a major component of genocide and can take the form of gendercide. In the Rwandan genocide, rape was a mechanism of social death that used as a form of gendercide against men. Charles, a victim of female perpetrated rape during the Rwandan genocide, recounted his experience of being raped by women. He recalled that he had been drugged, stripped and restrained to a bed and raped multiple times by different women. Charles expressed that he felt humiliated after the event occurred. The violation of his body and the bodies of multiple other male victims was essentially a form of gendercide because they often became socially dead as a result. These men became socially dead
Genocide, the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group. From 1992-1995 that was happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.
April 24th, 1915 marked the beginning of the first genocide of the 20th century, the Armenian Genocide. From April to October, 1918 approximately 1.8 million Armenian Turks were murdered by their fellow Turks. Leaders of this genocide were never brought to justice. The Turkish government managed to cover up the crimes, going as far as blackmailing other countries into ignoring the actions committed by the Turkish government during World War I. The United States is one of those countries. No recent American president in office has yet to acknowledge the events in the years 1915 - 1918 against the Armenian people as a genocide for fear of how it will affect the country’s relationship with Turkey. This fear has gone on to erase the topic from American discussion. The United States has a moral responsibility to hold the Turkish government responsible for this crime against humanity, as well as to take a step forward and have its citizens become educated about the Armenian Genocide. By doing so, it will reveal the cover up, hold the Turkish people responsible, and with great hope, the American citizens will come one step closer towards participating in ending future Holocausts, Rwandas, Bosnias, and Darfurs and their cover ups.
...n according to Nazi racist hierarchy or their religious and political affiliations that made them targets, not their sex. (2013, Women During the Holocaust section).
The word genocide brings up images of the second world war and the Holocaust. While the actions taken against the Jews and minority groups deserve remembrance, this is not the first genocide the world has experienced. During the first world war, Armenians found themselves in a similar position of the future Jews in Nazi Germany. What is left of the Ottoman Empire begins to align with a Turkish nationalism that leads to creating a country for Turks. This brings out the changes that ultimately lead to the Armenian genocide. While this topic has been an area of conflict, the Armenian genocide is a major turning point for the Turkish people. While the name suggests only Armenians were affected, groups like the Assyrians and Greeks were also targeted for their Christian beliefs.
The impacts socially of the gendercide include women being married younger and younger due to the lack of suitable age females. This young marriage and the pressures on the young girls to provide families causes them to miscarriages and create harm to their underdeveloped bodies. In addition to younger marriages, high rates of prostitution become a problem. Most girls will be stolen and sold into sex trafficking. The lack of females causes male tensions to be high with no female perspective to calm down all the male testosterone in the environment. With no females to marry and love, they turn to illegal practices to satisfy their desires. The marriage of such young females also hurts their opportunity to grow and develop as women in society. They lose their chance for education, and they settle down to simply raise children. This also
Moreover, females acting alone manage an estimated eight year killing time, double that of their male counterpart (as cited in Farrell et al, 2011, p. 232). For children, people are often hesitant to blame women for their deaths. Nobody wants to accept that a mother could kill their own child, or anyone else’s child. Even if they aren’t a mother, women are seen as compassionate and caring, the nurturing gender, so they are less likely to be the center of investigation in a child’s death.
Every Armenian remembers the date which he/she lost a family member. On April 24, 1.5 million Armenians were systematically massacred in western Armenia during the years of 1915 to 1923. Turkish governments always denied the charges, historians and government officials relied on undeniable documents and eyewitnesses that Turkey is responsible for the crimes it committed to the Armenian people. Not very many countries recognize the massacre as a genocide, but France, Russia, Sweden, Greece, Argentina, and many others recognize the massacre as a genocide. The Armenian genocide became the primary Genocide of the twentieth century. Who are the Armenians and why was their destiny so tragic? The Armenians are an ancient nation with a very wealthy
Rape is an issue that usually occurs to females and is more likely executed by males than females. Nonetheless, a female’s position in rape can and does go further than being the victim. Considering that women can be the perpetrator in this sexual assault, who are their victims? Rape can occur to anyone by anyone. In the same way a female can be a victim of rape, so can a male. According to RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization, “About 3% of American men have experienced attempted or completed rape as of 1998, an estimated 4.5 million as of 2010” (Who Are the Victims?). However, men are not necessarily the victims of solely female-on-male rape. In fact, the majority of males who are raped are the victims of male-on-male rape and
Gender-based violence is made possible by the ideology of sexism in Indian traditional culture which argues that women are worth less than men in the sense of having less power, status, privilege, and access to resources that is more prevalent in middle class and low caste families.
The Armenian Genocide can be labelled as a very controversial topic. Many people argue that the massacre of Armenians was considered a genocide. On the other hand, an abundance of people along with the Turks deny the event to be a genocide even till this day. The Turkish government deliberately had an intent to isolate and destroy the Armenians. They had an organized plan to carry out the killings and the acts of the Turkish government can be considered as the destruction of Armenians, not just the killings of them. The mass murder of this specific group of people during World War One should be identified as a genocide not only in this course but around the world as well.
The Armenian genocide was the first genocide of Modern World History, but it was not the first time the world saw an ethnic and religious group angry with and persecuting another. The Armenian genocide is special because it was the first time the world saw mass slaughter being planned and executed by government officials. This deliberate slaughter of Armenians has been the focus of many because of its unique persecution of a single ethnic group and the fact that the Turkish government still denies its existence. Although the Armenian genocide took place in the Middle East, it has impacted the entire world. The Armenian genocide happened during World War I. Most known genocides have happened during times of war, because most of the world or the population of the country is so focused on the war, so they do not notice the mass killings going on in their country or in other countries.
Sexual violence can happen to anyone. In fact, one out of every six women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Although, it is women who are targeted most often, it is important to understand that rape can occur to any person, regardless of various factors such as age, race, sex, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. What many people do not ponder is that most of the time when a woman is raped, she is actually blamed for the assault. As Aosved mentions in her article titled, ‘Co-occurrence of Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Ageism, Classism, and Religious Intolerance’, she states
As the realization of women as an exploited group increases, the similarity of their position to that of racial and ethnic groups becomes more apparent. Women are born into their sexual identity and are easily distinguished by physical and cultural characteristics. In addition, women now identify that they are all sufferers of an ideology (sexism) that tries to justify their inferior treatment.
Throughout the course of humanity's historical timeline, the notions of violence, social division, and hatred have been binding forces that relentlessly recur in nearly every human civilization that has graced the planet. Even the United States of America is plagued by a history of the chilling murders of the majority of North America’s indigenous populations on the grounds of festering greed and racist motives. This familiar occurence of mass fatality became prevalent in the Ottoman Empire near the time of World War I in the form of intense, widespread genocide, though the horrific events came and went with barely a whisper from the outside world. In this period, the Ottoman government, ruled by the Turks, conducted unspeakable crime and injustice
“The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but people tend to ignore, or even worse, not speak of the act. There have been recorded cases of rape and sexual assault in almost every war in human history. Genocidal rape was used as a gendered war tactic in the Rwandan genocide in order to accomplish the Hutu goal of elimination of the Tutsi people in whole, or part.