ABSTRACT
In recent years, systematic attention has begun to be paid, from both academic and humanitarian perspectives, to the phenomenon of gendercide, or gender-selective mass killing. An important aspect of the study of gendercide is attention to gendercidal institutions. These can be defined as patterned human behavior, enduring over time, that leads to largescale, disproportionate mortality among particular gender groups. Gender in turn can be understood as “refer[ring] to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society.” (This is the definition used by the International Criminal Court, which includes gender crimes among forms of “persecution against [an] identifiable group or collectivity.”)1
Analysis of gendercidal institutions is particularly important in understanding women’s victimization experiences worldwide and throughout history. In cases of politico-military genocide or other largescale atrocities, it is generally men, particularly those of a “battle age,” who are most likely to be marked off for selective killing, as in Bangladesh in 1971 or Srebrenica in 1995. Women, though frequently exposed to sexual assaults and other violence, tend to emerge from genocides more intact, demographically speaking, than their male counterparts.
