In instances of genocide, what motivates men to commit rape on such a large scale? The question asked relates to a set of specific Ottoman policies targeting women for rape and sexual violence based solely for their ethnic identity as Armenians. Among the policies for rape and sexual violence were also an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 women who were deemed fit to “incorporate” into Turkish society by way of forced marriages. This paper aims at evaluating the two major theoretical applications of rape theory during the Armenian genocide and their applicability in understanding Turkish efforts in eradicating the Armenian people as a whole.
Theoretical frameworks attempting to understand the motivations behind the perpetuation of rape during genocides
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One of the very first films which depicted the Armenian genocide was based on the story of survivor Aurora Mardiganian from her book Ravished Armenia. The film, retitled Auction of Souls, depicted in its release poster a tanned and darkened Turkish in traditional clothing with with a bloodied sword carting a pale-skinned screaming woman in the dark.
Although it is necessary to understand the perspective and struggle of rape and sexual violence victims’ trauma notions of Ottoman soldiers being motivated by their own hedonism is slightly flawed. The feminist theory is faulty in that it erases how gender role constructed women as targets for rape. The theory does not expand upon the underlying motivations which increasingly mobilized men to exert specific gendered violence against women. The theory is applied very broadly in mainly the context of predominantly western construction of gender roles against varying civilizations, empires, and
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Faiz Ghusayn’s, a former Turkish government official, eyewitness account of the genocide. Published in 1917 Ghusayn’s documentation, the book named Martyred Armenian noted the mistreatment of Armenians in the Ottoman empire and related that “the Government began to collect these women, so the Mufti and the Kadi went to the Vali and said that the women in question were no longer Armenian, having become Mussulmans, and by the Sacred Law the killing of Mussulman was not
Willsher, Kim and Sam Jones. "Turkey Warns France over Armenian Genocide Law." The Guardian. The Guardian, 24 Jan. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2013
Gunter, Michael M. Armenian History and the Question of Genocide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Print.
It was the research of Dobash and Dobash, a husband and wife team from Wales, that first posited that “intimate partner violence is the result of male oppression of women within a patriarchal system in which men are the primary perpetrators and women the primary victims” (McPhail, B. A., Busch, N. B., Kulkarni, S., & Rice, G., 2007). According to Lawson (2012), feminist theories treat the problem of intimate partner violence as fundamentally related to the patriarchal domination of men over women. Historically, patriarchy was the dominant social structure from early Greek and Roman civilizations where women were considered to be the property of their father, if unmarried, and their husband if married. As such, women were often beaten, burned, and killed for not being obedient to a man’s
Many of the attitudes, beliefs, and mistaken ideas about rape have been with us for centuries. By looking at myths, such as “women ask for it,” and “it would do some women good to get raped,” from a historical perspective, lead us for better understanding how they evolved. Women are still seen as the property of men, are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today’s world. Men are usually more aggressive, and women are seen as passive. (Vogelman) This socialization process is changing, but slowly.
Sexual assault of men in history is recognized as a means of humiliating opponents by conquering soldiers especially the Romans. It was used as a feature of sexual torture or aggression. Rape, in this case, is motivated by a wish to dominate and degrade the victim. Man on man rape is usually discussed when the incarceration is the topic due to social media and movies. Although nearly two-thirds of the male jail inmates who had been victimized, said the staff perpetrator was female nevertheless that one-third of rape is still a cause for concern as anal trauma that occurs in male rap...
There are many reasons why men or women rape. Socioeconomic, sexual abuse as a young child, power, and anger to name a few are reasons to why peopl...
On April 24, 1915 the Armenian genocide began. 1 million and 5 hundred-thousand people got killed because of Turkish government. Many of them got raped, enslaved and murdered. For instance, they drowned people in rivers, burned them alive, executed and etc. They also kidnapped children and sent to Turkish families. In many places, Turkish people rapped and used Armenian women as a slave. “The Armenians marched by Turkish soldiers” picture in “artvoice.com” website shows the Armenians nearby prison in Mezierh by armed Turkish soldiers. Also only 25% Armenians deported to the deserts of Syria and Iraq. After the war between Armenian and Turks, only 380’000 Armenian remained in the Ottoman Empire. In June 1915, 25 percent of the Armenian population was deported t...
Works Cited "Armenian Genocide, The." The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute. National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
The Ottoman Empire once was an enormous however it began to decline throughout the years. Throughout the chaos of World War One, a Turkish nationalist group known as the young Turks wanted to bring back the vast empire by purifying their people of the Armenians which were a Christian minority group. This slowly gained momentum and more people began to agree that they had to cleanse their people. When they started treating the Armenians so badly was when Armin t. Wegner started taking pictures of what was going on. His pictures showed the truth of what was going on, however, the Turkish government tried covering them up. This didn't stop Wegner because he wanted to show everyone what was going on with the Armenians.
Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: "Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and the Armenian Genocide. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005. (Accessed March 20, 2014).
Zurbriggen, E. (). Rape, War, And The Socialization of Masculinity: Why Our Refusal To Give Up Was Ensures That Rape Cannot Be Eradicated. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34, 538-539
“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.
Many of the attitudes, beliefs, and mistaken ideas about rape have been with us for centuries. By looking at myths, such as “women ask for it,” and “women secretly enjoy rape,” from a historical perspective, can lead us for better understanding how they evolved. Much stems back to the idea that women are still seen as the property of men, and are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today’s world. Men a...
Webster’s Dictionary describes rape as the crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse. Rape is a crime in which most women cannot defend themselves. The fear of rape plagues every woman at some point or another in her life. The traumatic effects of rape vary from mild to severe, from psychological to physical. This paper will evaluate rape, as well as the effects it has on women, the theory behind male dominance and patriarchy, and differences in demographics.
The society we live in is rape-conducive, rape-friendly, if you will. Despite the anger I feel joining those two words together, I know the sad paradox holds within it a great deal of truth. We are a violent society that has shrouded rape in mystery and shame. To stop this nightmare’s venomous crusades, all people must wage a private war to eradicate their own acceptance of the savage crime. While it is only a minority of men that actually commit rape, it is everyone’s silence that tells them it’s ok.