Gendered Genocide: The Socially Destructive Process of Genocidal Rape, Killing, and Displacement in Darfur

Accounts of mass atrocities habitually focus on one kind of violence and its archetypal victim, inviting uncritical, ungendered misconceptions: for example, rape only impacts women; genocide is only about dead, battle-aged men. We approach collective violence as multiple, intersecting forms of victimization, targeted and experienced through differential social identities, and translated throughout communities. Through mixed-method analyses of Darfuri refugees' testimonies, we show (a) gendered causes and collective effects of selective killing, sexual violence, and anti-livelihood crimes, (b) how they cause displacement, (c) that they can be genocidal and empirically distinct from nongenocidal forms, (d) how the process of genocidal social destruction can work, and (e) how it does work in Darfur. Darfuris are victimized through gender roles, yielding a gendered meaning-making process that communicates socially destructive messages through crimes that selectively target other genders. The collective result is displacement and destruction of Darfuris' ways of life: genocide.