Systematic killing of members of a specific gender
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Gendercide is the systematic killing of members of a specific gender.[1] 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.
The term gendercide was first coined by American feminist Mary Anne Warren in her 1985 book, Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection. It refers to gender-selective mass killing.[2] Warren drew "an analogy between the concept of genocide" and what she called "gendercide". In her book, Warren wrote:
By analogy, gendercide would be the deliberate extermination of persons of a particular sex (or gender). Other terms, such as "gynocide" and "femicide," have been used to refer to the wrongful killing of girls and women. Nevertheless, "gendercide" is a sex-neutral term in that the victims may be either male or female. There is a need for such a sex-neutral term since sexually discriminatory killing is just as wrong when the victims happen to be male. The term also calls attention to the fact that gender roles have often had lethal consequences and that these are in important respects analogous to the lethal consequences of racial, religious, and class prejudice.[1]
Memorial plaque in Berlin for Nuriye Bekir, who was murdered in an "honor" killingMemorial plaque for Hatun Sürücü in Berlin. The Kurdish woman from Turkey was murdered at the age of 23 by her brothers in an "honor" killing.
Femicide is defined as the systematic killing of women for various reasons, usually cultural. The word is attested from the 1820s.[3]
The most widespread form of femicide is in the form of gender-selective infanticide in cultures with strong preferences for males such as China and India. According to the United Nations, male-to-female ratios have experienced radical changes from the normal range.[4] Gendercide of girls is reported to be a rising problem in several countries. Census statistics report that in countries such as China, the male to female ratio is as high as 120 men for every 100 women.[5] Many experts attribute such a ratio to institutions such as China's one-child policy. Female heirs were considered less desirable than male heirs, and subsequently abandoned and eliminated in mass.[6] Gendercide also takes the forms of infanticide and lethal violence against a particular gender at any stage of life. The World Bank describes violence against girls and women as a "global pandemic". One in three women experiences gender-based violence in their lifetime. In research released in 2019, 38% of murdered women were killed by an intimate partner.[7]
106:100 in 1979 (106 boys for every 100 girls, close to the upper limit of the 'normal' range)
111:100 in 1988
117:100 in 2001
120:100 in 2005
In India, parents may prefer male children because they desire heirs who will care for them in their old age. Other instances of female infanticide are carried out in belief that the female children are better off not being alive, so as to not "[suffer]".[9] Additionally, the cost of a dowry – the family's price for their daughter to be married off – is very high in India, making a female child undesirable, while a male heir would bring a dowry to the family by way of marriage. According to the British publication, The Independent, the 2011 census revealed 7.1 million fewer girls than boys aged under the age of seven, up from 6 million in 2001 and from 4.2 million in 1991. The sex ratio in the age group is now 915 girls to 1,000 boys (109 boys for every 100 girls), the lowest since records began in 1961.[10]
There have been reports of femicide in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico,[13] where 411 assassinations of women were qualified as serial and/or of sexual characteristic, by domestic violence, intimate femicides and hatred against women.[14] The response to these murders has included the criminalisation of feminicide in the country.[15]
Contemporary mechanisms of gendercide lie within sexualized violence against women; the females of "sub-Saharan Africa (Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola) in areas that are also at the heart of the "AIDS belt",[16] are not only at-risk due to living in places where there are "current cases of large-scale rape",[16] but are also susceptible to contracting HIV. Less popularized tactics of gendercide against women include the systemic withholding of critical medical, and nutritional care, predominantly occurring "across the belt of "deep patriarchy" extending from East through West Asia and into Northern Africa";[17] here. Adam Jones, a co-founder of Gendercide Watch, an online research platform created to spread awareness, estimates that the denial of healthcare for women equates to approximately the same toll as that of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide per year.[17]
Over 200,000 die from bleeding, with many giving birth in buses or bullock carts. Lack of health education restricts commonplace medical knowledge; thus, bystanders are unable to offer assistance. In addition, the casualty rate from self-administered abortions is roughly 75,000. Eclampsia, a condition possible pre-, during, and post-childbirth, is characterized by seizures due to high blood pressure, and its effects kill another 75,000 through damage to the brain and kidneys. Moreover, 100,000 die from sepsis, contracted through untreated infections of the uterus and remaining fragments of the placenta that poison the bloodstream. Also, female casualties due to labor obstructions stagger around the 400,000 range.[citation needed]
Female genital mutilation also proves itself a form of gendercide, with at least 200 million girls and women having been cut in 31 different countries, most prominently in MENA countries.[18] The practice has shown to have both fatal immediate and long-term complications. Immediate complications include infection, bleeding, urinary problems, and long-term complications include vaginal and menstrual problems, decreased sexual satisfaction, and complications with childbirth, including the increased risk of newborn deaths.[19]
Additionally, women have historically been the victims of sexual violence, and rape has been repeatedly used as both a weapon of war, and a form of genocide. For example, "between the months of January and August of 1945," there were over "1.4 million" reported "rape cases". Subsequently, some "200,000 girls and women" died because of sexually transmitted diseases.[20][21]
Adam Jones drafted possible solutions to aid the crisis in Africa. He concluded treatment "would mean training some 850,000 health workers, according to UNICEF and World Health Organization reports, as well as [funding] the necessary drugs and equipment. The total cost would be US $200 million, about the price of half a dozen jet fighters".[17]
Pharaoh and the Midwives, James Tissot c. 1900. In Exodus 1:15-21, Puah and Shiphrah were commanded by Pharaoh to kill all of the newborn baby boys, but they disobeyed.
Androcide is the systematic killing of men or boys for various reasons, usually cultural.[22] Androcide may happen during war to reduce an enemy's potential pool of soldiers. According to the Global Justice Center, perpetrators of genocide often target men and boys first or give them greater priority, and they may also suffer "other acts of violence ... such as torture, rape, and enslavement" that tend to be obscured by a focus on the killings themselves.[23]
Examples include the 1988 Anfal campaign against Kurdish males that were considered "battle-aged" (or approximately ages 15–50)[24][25] in Iraqi Kurdistan. While many of these deaths took place after the Kurdish men were captured and processed at a concentration camp, the worst instances of the gendercide happened at the end of the campaign (August 25 – September 6, 1988).[26]
Another incident of androcide was the Srebrenica massacre of approximately 8,000 Bosniak men and boys on July 12, 1995, ruled as an act of genocide by the International Court of Justice.[27][28] From the morning of July 12, Serb forces began gathering men and boys from the refugee population in Potočari and holding them in separate locations, and as the refugees began boarding the buses headed north towards Bosniak-held territory, Serb soldiers separated men of military age who were trying to clamber aboard. Occasionally, younger and older men were stopped (some as young as 14 or 15).[29][30][31]
Individual men also fall victim to honor killings. Male honor killings are often carried out by family members to prevent dishonor from falling onto families; reasons for male honor killings range from sexuality to gender identity.[32][33]
According to genocide scholar Adam Jones, "non-combatant men have been and continue to be the most frequent targets of mass killing and genocidal slaughter, as well as a host of lesser atrocities and abuses."[34]
Gendercide against third gender people is the systemic killing of people who do not fit within the gender binary. Deborah Miranda uses the term gendercide to identify the Spanish colonial practice of systemically targeting joyas (the Spanish term for third gender people) in an attempt to exterminate them.[35] Qwo-Li Driskill writes how this violence was waged against people now understood as two-spirit.[36]
In 1513 at Santa Clara, Darien (present day Panama), Spanish explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa encountered about forty Indigenous men dressed as women. He commanded his soldiers to execute them through making them prey for their war dogs, which were specially bred mastiffs or greyhounds. They were dismembered and eaten alive by the dogs. Third gender people from around the area were rounded up in service of Spanish authority. Miranda writes that "the Spanish had made it clear that to tolerate, harbor, or associate with the third gender meant death."[35]
In his 1775 memoir, Spanish soldier Pedro Fages wrote that about two or three joyas could be identified in each Indigenous Californian village and were "held in great esteem" in their communities. Fages sought to initiate a swift reduction of the joyas, writing "we place our trust in God and expect that these accursed people will disappear with the growth of the missions. The abominable vice will be eliminated to the extent that the Catholic faith and all the other virtues are firmly implanted there, for the glory of God and the benefit of those poor ignorants."[35]
By region
Europe
In Europe, there are many different types of gendercide.
Most recent instances of mass gendercide in Europe have resulted from sociopolitical motions, as "military strategies". For example, during the 1999 war in Kosovo, "battle age" ethnic-Albanian men were detained and killed in mass as a part of a "Serb military strategy".[37]
Historically, from the 15th to the 18th century, girls, women, and some men fell victim to the frenzied cultural phenomena of witch-hunts. It is estimated that upwards of 100,000 trials took place, and from those trials, 60,000 individuals were executed.[38]
Individual instances of gendercide also continue to permeate European society, ranging to individual murders, honor killings, to war-related deaths.
Asia
When compared to Europe, Asia has a staggeringly different sex-ratio. In Qatar, a middle-eastern country, there are a reported 299 males for every 100 females. The ratio is primarily due to large immigrant populations of largely male temporary workers[39] or the pervading cultural sentiment of males being more desirable than females.[40] Men are seen as more useful, and women as costly burdens. Such sentiments have led to increased rates of female infanticide across the continent, especially in countries such as India.[6]
And though honor killings occur everywhere, they occur most commonly in Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.[41] Experts explain that such murders are performed in order to protect the cultural concept of familial honor; things dishonorable enough to warrant such actions can range from sexuality, divorce, to gender identity.[42]
Africa
Gendercide across Africa is as ranged as any other continent. Gendercide through systematic governmental efforts have been carried out across African countries over the centuries. For example, there exists the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 were killed, and 250,000 girls and women were systematically raped by individuals infected with HIV/AIDs virus, resulting in even more death, and a continued issue with the disease even to this day.[43]
Gendercide also exists in Africa through the form of female genital mutilation–a procedure performed on both infants and girls that can result in numerous immediate and longterm complications and even death.
Similarly to Europe, witch-hunts prove a form of gendercide across Africa. It is reported that both men and women fall victim to witch-hunts, but women are more heavily targeted.[44]
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to gender roles and stereotypes, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Discrimination in this context is defined as discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. An example of this is workplace inequality. Sexism refers to violation of equal opportunities based on gender or refers to violation of equality of outcomes based on gender, also called substantive equality. Sexism may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.
Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborn female children. Female infanticide is prevalent in several nations such as China, India and Pakistan. It has been argued that the low status in which women are viewed in patriarchal societies creates a bias against females. The modern practice of gender-selective abortion is also used to regulate gender ratios.
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations and needs equally, regardless of gender.
Femicide or feminicide is a term for the hate crime of systematically killing women, girls, or females in general because of their sex. In 1976, the feminist author Diana E. H. Russell first implicitly defined the term as a hate killing of females by males but then went on to redefine it as "the killing of females by males because they are female" in later years. Femicide can be perpetrated by either gender but is more often committed by men. This is most likely due to unequal power between men and women as well as harmful gender roles, stereotypes, or social norms.
Kurdish women have traditionally played important roles in Kurdish society and politics. In general, Kurdish women's rights and equality have improved dramatically in the 21st century due to progressive movements within Kurdish society. However, despite the progress, Kurdish and international women's rights organizations still report problems related to gender inequality, forced marriages, honor killings, and in Iraqi Kurdistan, female genital mutilation (FGM).
Human Rights in Mexico refers to moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behaviour in Mexico, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. The problems include torture, extrajudicial killings and summary executions, police repression, sexual murder, and, more recently, news reporter assassinations.
Androcide is a term for the hate crime of systematically killing men, boys, or males in general because of their gender. Not all murders of men are androcides in the same way that not all murders of women are femicides. Androcides often happen during war or genocide. Men and boys are not 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.
An honor killing, honour killing, or shame killing is a traditional form of murder in which a person is killed by or at the behest of members of their family, due to culturally sanctioned beliefs that such homicides are necessary as retribution for the perceived dishonoring of the family by the victim. Honor killings are often connected to religion, caste, other forms of hierarchical social stratification, or sexuality. Most often, it involves the murder of a woman or girl by male family members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought dishonor or shame upon the family name, reputation or prestige. Honor killings are believed to have originated from tribal customs.
Women got full political participation rights in Turkey, including the right to vote and the right to run for officelocally in 1930. Article 10 of the Turkish Constitution bans any discrimination, state or private, on the grounds of sex. It is the first country to have a woman as the President of its Constitutional Court. Article 41 of the Turkish Constitution reads that the family is "based on equality between spouses".
Gender inequality in India refers to health, education, economic and political inequalities between men and women in India. Various international gender inequality indices rank India differently on each of these factors, as well as on a composite basis, and these indices are controversial.
The status of women in Iraq at the beginning of the 21st century is affected by many factors: wars, sectarian religious debates concerning Islamic law and Iraq's Constitution, cultural traditions, and modern secularism. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are widowed as a result of a series of wars and internal conflicts. Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation, while they work to promote improvements to women's status in the law, in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life, and to curtail abusive practices such as honor killings and forced marriages.
Rita Banerji (1967) is an author, photographer and gender activist from India. Her non-fiction book Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies was published in 2008. She is the founder of the 50 Million Missing online campaign to raise awareness of female gendercide in India.
Female foeticide in India is the abortion of a female foetus outside of legal methods. A research by Pew Research Center based on Union government data indicates foeticide of at least 9 million females in the years 2000–2019. The research found that 86.7% of these foeticides were by Hindus, followed by Sikhs with 4.9%, and Muslims with 6.6%. The research also indicated an overall decline in preference for sons in the time period.
Violence against men are violent acts that are disproportionately or exclusively committed against men or boys. Men are over-represented as both victims and perpetrators of violence.
Violence against women in Guatemala reached severe levels during the long-running Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and the continuing impact of that conflict has contributed to the present high levels of violence against women in that nation. During the armed conflict, rape was used as a weapon of war.
Prosecution of gender-targeted crimes is the legal proceedings to prosecute crimes such as rape and domestic violence. The earliest documented prosecution of gender-based/targeted crimes is from 1474 when Sir Peter von Hagenbach was convicted for rapes committed by his troops. However, the trial was only successful in indicting Sir von Hagenbach with the charge of rape because the war in which the rapes occurred was "undeclared" and thus the rapes were considered illegal only because of this. Gender-targeted crimes continued to be prosecuted, but it was not until after World War II when an international criminal tribunal – the International Military Tribunal for the Far East – were officers charged for being responsible of the gender-targeted crimes and other crimes against humanity. Despite the various rape charges, the Charter of the Tokyo Tribunal did not make references to rape, and rape was considered as subordinate to other war crimes. This is also the situation for other tribunals that followed, but with the establishments of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), there was more attention to the prosecution of gender-targeted crimes with each of the statutes explicitly referring to rape and other forms of gender-targeted violence.
Women in Syria constitute 49.9% of Syria's population. According to World Bank data from 2021, there are around 10.6 million women in Syria. As important members of the Syrian community, they are active participants in social, economic and political factions of society. However, Syrian women and girls still experience challenges, especially since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, in the areas of legal rights, suitable healthcare and challenges precipitated by wartime violence.
China has a history of female infanticide which spans 2,000 years. When Christian missionaries arrived in China in the late sixteenth century, they witnessed newborns being thrown into rivers or onto rubbish piles. In the seventeenth century Matteo Ricci documented that the practice occurred in several of China's provinces and said that the primary reason for the practice was poverty. The practice continued into the 19th century and declined precipitously during the Communist era, but has reemerged as an issue since the introduction of the one-child policy in the early 1980s. The 2020 census showed a male-to-female ratio of 105.07 to 100 for mainland China, a record low since the People's Republic of China began conducting censuses. Every year in China and India alone, there are close to two million instances of some form of female infanticide.
Female infanticide in India has a history spanning centuries. Poverty, the dowry system, births to unmarried women, deformed infants, famine, lack of support services, and maternal illnesses such as postpartum depression are among the causes that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon of female infanticide in India.
Violence against women in India refers to physical or sexual violence committed against a woman, typically by a man. Common forms of violence against women in India include acts such as domestic abuse, sexual assault, and murder. There are several forms of violence against women, murder, female infanticide, sexual crimes, acid throwing, perpetuation.
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