Gender Based Violence against Men and Boys in Darfur: What is Gendered about Genocide?

• In Event: 286 - Regular Session. Human Rights

Abstract

Analyses of gender-based violence during mass conflict have typically focused on violence committed by men against women. Violence perpetrated against men has, instead, only recently been examined as gender-based violence in its own right. Drawing upon narratives from 1,136 Darfuri refugees surveyed in Chad in 2004, we analyze patterns of gender-based violence and identify four key mechanisms through which this violence emasculates men and boys: homosexualization, feminization, genital harm, and sex-selective killing. In line with an interactionist approach, we argue that perpetrators enacting gender-based violence perform masculinity in accordance with hegemonic gender norms in Sudan and demonstrate how genocidal violence is gendered. We also show how gender-based violence enacts, reinforces, and creates meaning on multiple levels in a matrix of mutually reinforcing processes that we term the genocide-gender nexus. Beyond extending the gender-violence link to the context of mass atrocity, this study facilitates an understanding of the mechanisms through which gender inequalities may be reproduced and maintained in diverse social structures.

Authors

• Gabrielle Ann Ferrales, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

• Hollie Nyseth Brehm, The Ohio State University

• Suzy McElrath, University of Minnesota