Men, Masculinities and Genocide

Abstract

This chapter highlights both the gendered invisibility in and the centrality of men, boys and masculinities in acts and processes of genocide and mass atrocity. It outlines how taking a critical masculinities approach can help in understanding the complex relationship between gender norms and genocidal violence. Although men play central roles as perpetrators, victims, survivors, enablers, bystanders and witnesses, they are seldom analyzed as gendered beings, with expectations projected onto them by society and in part internalized by themselves. These projections are not the same for all men, but interact with age, class, sexual orientation, dis-/ability, as well as ethnic or religious background. In a given genocidal situation, these may interact to push one group of men to become perpetrators, and force others into a position of targets of violence and death. By outlining such an intersectional, critical approach to masculinities at the macro- and micro-levels of perpetration, the chapter offers the required tools to develop a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of violence as well as of the gendered ideologies underpinning genocide.