ABSTRACT
This chapter explores male/masculine vulnerabilities in the genocides in Rwanda in 1994 and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 1996 to the present. It presents some case studies in a global historical context, with references to other twentieth and twenty-first-century genocides. The concept of “gendercidal institutions” – structural forms of violence that inflict gender-selective suffering and death, often on a massive scale – was introduced in the discussion of female mortality in Rwanda, the DRC, and elsewhere. The main themes are the selective (“gendercidal”) killing of males; the little-studied theme of rape and sexual violence against men and boys; and the “gendercidal institutions” of military conscription and forced labour. The chapter also explores the implications of the findings for a gendered approach to humanitarian intervention and a gendered discourse of human rights. Surely, a discourse of gendered rights and vulnerabilities need not be a zero-sum game.
