Androcide

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In the biblical narrative the Massacre of the Innocents, males under the age of two were selected to be executed by the state. Kerald (Meister des Codex Egberti) 001.jpg
In the biblical narrative the Massacre of the Innocents, males under the age of two were selected to be executed by the state.

Androcide is a term for the hate crime of systematically killing males because of their sex. Not all murders of men are androcide. Androcides often happen during war or genocide. Men and boys are not always solely targeted because of abstract or ideological hatred. Rather, male civilians are often targeted during warfare as a way to remove those considered to be potential combatants, and during genocide as a way to destroy the entire community. [1] [2]

Contents

Etymology

Androcide is a hyponym of gendercide. [3] The etymological root of the hybrid word is derived from a combination of the Greek prefix andro meaning "man" or boy, [4] with the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing. [5]

Causes

Androcide may be deliberate: for example, to degrade the offensive capabilities of an adversary. [6] Massacres of men and boys may be of this type. For example, during the Kosovo War, the Yugoslav forces under Slobodan Milošević was accused of massacring a lot of male Albanians of "battle age" because they saw them as a threat. [7]

Androcide may also be part of a larger genocide. Perpetrators may treat male and female victims differently. For example, during the Armenian genocide, elite men were publicly executed. Afterward, average men and boys would be killed en masse, and the women and little children in their communities deported. Gendercide Watch, an independent human rights group, regards this as a gendercide against men. [8] However, this gendered treatment of victims was not ubiquitous; in many locations, women and girls were also subject to massacre. [9]

Men's rights activists such as Paul Nathanson, author of Replacing Misandry: A Revolutionary History of Men argue that the draft is a form of androcide. In many countries, only men are subjected to military conscription, which leaves them at greater risk of death during warfare compared to women. [10] Worldwide, males constitute 79% of non-conflict homicides [11] and the majority of direct conflict deaths. [12]

Androcide has also been a feature of literature in ancient Greek mythology [13] and in hypothetical situations wherein there is discord between the sexes. [14]

Warfare

Generally, military services will forcibly conscript men to fight in warfare, inevitably leading to massive male casualties when faced with males on the opposing side. [15] Non-combatant males make up a majority of the casualties in mass killings in warfare. [16] This practice occurs since soldiers see opposing men, fighting or otherwise, as rivals and a threat to their superiority. Alternatively, they are afraid that these men will attempt to fight back and kill them for any number of reasons, including revenge, mutual fear, and self defense. Thus, they may kill preemptively in an attempt to prevent this possibility. [17]

Examples

In warfare

Srebrenica

As part of genocide

Plants

With regards to plants, androcide may refer to efforts to direct pollination through emasculating certain crops. [37]

In cannabis cultivation, male plants are culled once identified to prevent fertilisation of female plants due to the fact unfertilised female plants produce parthenocarpic fruits.

Mythology

In the Ancient Greek myth of the Trojan War, accounts of which are largely legendary, the Greeks killed all the men and boys of Troy after conquering it. Even infants and the elderly were not spared; the Greeks wanted to prevent a future Trojan rebellion or uprising. The female Trojans were raped and enslaved rather than being killed. [38]

See also

Related Research Articles

Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armenian genocide</span> 1915–1917 mass murder in the Ottoman Empire

The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was the first legal instrument to codify genocide as a crime, and the first human rights treaty unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, on 9 December 1948, during the third session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951 and has 153 state parties as of June 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Jacques Dessalines</span> Haitian revolutionary and first ruler (1758–1806)

Jean-Jacques Dessalines was the first Haitian Emperor, leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Initially regarded as governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I (1804–1806) by generals of the Haitian Revolutionary army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. He spearheaded the resistance against French rule of Saint-Domingue, and eventually became the architect of the 1804 massacre of the remaining French residents of newly independent Haiti, including some supporters of the revolution. Alongside Toussaint Louverture, he has been referred to as one of the fathers of the nation of Haiti. Dessalines was directly responsible for the country, and, under his rule, Haiti became the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human rights in Ba'athist Iraq</span> Human rights issues from 1979 to 2003

Iraq under the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party saw severe violations of human rights. Secret police, state terrorism, torture, mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, deportations, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, assassinations, chemical warfare, and the destruction of the Mesopotamian marshes were some of the methods Saddam Hussein and the country's Ba'athist government used to maintain control. Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, which violated the Charter of the United Nations. The total number of deaths and disappearances related to repression during this period is unknown, but is estimated to be at least 250,000 to 290,000 according to Human Rights Watch, with the great majority of those occurring as a result of the Anfal genocide in 1988 and the suppression of the uprisings in Iraq in 1991. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-Domingue</span> French colony on the isle of Hispaniola (1659–1804); present-day Haiti

Saint-Domingue was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1697 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city on the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer specifically to the Spanish-held Captaincy General of Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. The borders between the two were fluid and changed over time until they were finally solidified in the Dominican War of Independence in 1844.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haitian Revolution</span> 1791–1804 slave revolt in Saint-Domingue

The Haitian Revolution was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known slave uprising in human history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery and ruled by non-whites and former captives.

Gendercide is the systematic killing of members of a specific gender. The term is related to the general concepts of assault and murder against victims due to their gender, with violence against men and women being problems dealt with by human rights efforts. Gendercide shares similarities with the term 'genocide' in inflicting mass murders; however, gendercide targets solely one gender, being men or women. Politico-military frameworks have historically inflicted militant-governed divisions between femicide and androcide; gender-selective policies increase violence on gendered populations due to their socioeconomic significance. Certain cultural and religious sentiments have also contributed to multiple instances of gendercide across the globe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1804 Haitian massacre</span> Massacre of the White French people in Haiti by Black Haitians following the Haitian Revolution

The 1804 Haiti massacre, also referred to as the Haitian genocide, was carried out by Afro-Haitian soldiers, mostly former slaves, under orders from Jean-Jacques Dessalines against much of the remaining European population in Haiti, which mainly included French people. The Haitian Revolution defeated the French army in November 1803 and the Haitian Declaration of Independence happened on 1 January 1804. From February 1804 until 22 April 1804, between 3,000 and 7,000 people were killed.

Violence against men comprises violent acts that are disproportionately committed against men or boys. Men are overrepresented as both victims and perpetrators of violence. Violence against women is the opposite category, where acts of violence are targeted against the female gender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocidal rape</span> Mass sexual assault during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign

Genocidal rape, a form of wartime sexual violence, is the action of a group which has carried out acts of mass rape and gang rapes, against its enemy during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign. During the Armenian genocide, the Greek genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the second Sino-Japanese war, the Holocaust, the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Bosnian War, the Rwandan genocide, the Tamil genocide, the Circassian genocide, the Congolese conflicts, the South Sudanese Civil War, the Yazidi Genocide, and Rohingya genocide, mass rapes that had been an integral part of those conflicts brought the concept of genocidal rape to international prominence. Although war rape has been a recurrent feature in conflicts throughout human history, it has usually been looked upon as a by-product of conflict and not an integral part of military policy.

During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women and children were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) handed down the first conviction for the use of rape as a weapon of war during the civil conflict, and, because the intent of the mass violence against Rwandan women and children was to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular ethnic group, it was the first time that mass rape during wartime was found to be an act of genocidal rape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rape during the Armenian genocide</span> 1915–1917 war crimes in the Ottoman Empire

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References

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Sources