Gendercide is a
neologismA neologism ; from Greek νές is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event...
that refers to the systematic killing of members of a specific sex, either males or females.
Gendercide is gender-selective mass killing. The term was first used by Mary Anne Warren in her 1985 book,
Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection. Warren drew "an analogy between the concept of
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
" and what she called "gendercide." Citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of genocide as "the deliberate
exterminationExtermination is the act of killing with the intention of eradicating demographics within a population.* When applied to humans, the term genocide is more often used. However, extermination is categorized in international criminal law as a crime against humanity which is separate from genocide.*...
of a race of people," Warren wrote:
By analogy, gendercide would be the deliberate extermination of persons of a particular sex (or gender).
Gendercide is a
neologismA neologism ; from Greek νές is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event...
that refers to the systematic killing of members of a specific sex, either males or females.
Gendercide
Gendercide is gender-selective mass killing. The term was first used by Mary Anne Warren in her 1985 book,
Gendercide: The Implications of Sex Selection. Warren drew "an analogy between the concept of
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
" and what she called "gendercide." Citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of genocide as "the deliberate
exterminationExtermination is the act of killing with the intention of eradicating demographics within a population.* When applied to humans, the term genocide is more often used. However, extermination is categorized in international criminal law as a crime against humanity which is separate from genocide.*...
of a race of people," 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. But "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.
Warren explored the deliberate extermination of women through analysis of such subjects as female
infanticideInfanticide is the practice of someone intentionally killing an infant. Often it is the mother who commits the act, but criminology recognizes various forms of non-maternal child murder. In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
,
maternal deathMaternal death, or maternal mortality, also "obstetrical death" is the death of a woman during or shortly after a pregnancy. In 2000, the United Nations estimated global maternal mortality at 529,000, of which less than 1% occurred in the developed world...
,
witch-huntsWitch-Hunts is the third studio album of the Finnish black metal band Darkwoods My Betrothed.-Track listing:#"Without Ceremony and Bell Toll" – 5:59#"Inside the Circle of Stones" – 6:38#"The Crow and the Warrior" – 4:21#"Dying to Meet you" – 6:14...
in early modern Europe, and other atrocities and abuses against women.
Femicide
Femicide is defined as the systematic killing of women for various reasons, usually cultural. Femicide is seen as a
gender crimeA gender crime is an hate crime committed against a specific gender. Gender crimes are predominantly, though not always, committed against women. Specific gender crimes may include some instances of rape, genital mutilation, forced prostitution, and forced pregnancy. Often purported gender crimes...
. The word is attested from the 1820s.
The most widespread form of femicide is in the form of sex-selective infanticide in cultures with strong preferences for male offspring.
There have been reports of femicide in
Guatemala CityGuatemala City is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala...
,
GuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its size is just under 110,000 km² with an estimated population...
, and in
Ciudad JuárezCiudad Juárez, also known as just Juárez and formerly known as Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez has an estimated population of 1.5 million people. It stands on the Rio Grande , across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas...
, Chihuahua,
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. The
murders in JuarezThe phenomenon of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, called in Spanish the feminicidios and las muertas de Juárez , involves the violent deaths of hundreds of women since 1993 in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the U.S. city of El...
, also known as
las muertas de Juárez ("The dead women of Juárez"), and Guatemala were reportedly not investigated by the
local authoritiesA police service is a public force empowered to enforce the law and provide security through the legitimized use of force.The term is most commonly associated with police services of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of...
. Most of the women were
rapeRape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or without sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent....
d before being murdered and some were
mutilatedMutilation or maiming is an act or physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of any living body, usually without causing death.- Usage of term :...
,
tortureTorture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may be motivated to inflict torture on others for similar reasons to those of a state; however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of...
d, and dismembered. In Guatemala City, about 20% of the over 500 women murdered in 2004 and 2005 were killed in pairs, due to a (
lesbianLesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
) "intimate relationship", according to Claudia Acevedo of
LesbiradasLesbiradas is the only public lesbian rights organization in Guatemala. Lesbiradas works towards gaining human rights for lesbians, bisexual women and transgender people. It is run out of Guatemala City and currently has five central organizers...
.
Viricide
Viricide is the systematic killing of men for various reasons, usually cultural. Viricide is seen as a
gender crimeA gender crime is an hate crime committed against a specific gender. Gender crimes are predominantly, though not always, committed against women. Specific gender crimes may include some instances of rape, genital mutilation, forced prostitution, and forced pregnancy. Often purported gender crimes...
. Viricide may happen during war to reduce an enemy's potential pool of soldiers.
Perhaps one of the earliest examples of viricide in recorded history occurred some time during the 600s BCE when Ionian pirates massacred the men of
MiletusMiletus was an ancient city on the western coast of Anatolia , near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Caria...
, forced the Milesian women into marriage with them, and settled the city of Miletus in the Milesian men's stead.
[1911 Encyclopedia Britannica] It has been written that forever afterward the Milesian women would neither eat with their husbands nor address them by name.
The most famed example of viricide in Western literature is recounted in the Book of Matthew in the
New TestamentThe New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...
of the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
. If modern scholars are correct in establishing the birth of Jesus as around the year 3 BCE, the slaughter would have taken shortly thereafter. Matthew 2:16 states that
HerodHerod is a name used of several kings belonging to the Herodian Dynasty of Roman Iudaea Province:...
ordered what is known as the
Massacre of the InnocentsThe Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of mass infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great, that appears in the Gospel of Matthew . The author, traditionally believed to be Matthew the Evangelist, reports that King Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of...
, which modern scholars note may be apocryphal rather than an actual historical event:
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
targeted male intellectuals for extermination in the erstwhile province of
East PakistanEast Pakistan was a former province of Pakistan which existed between 1947 and 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal Province based on a plebiscite in what was then British India in 1947. Eastern Bengal chose to join the Dominion of Pakistan and became a province of Pakistan by the name East...
(present day
Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
) during the
1971 Bangladesh atrocitiesBeginning with the start of Operation Searchlight on 25 March 1971 and continuing throughout the Bangladesh War of Independence, there were widespread violations of human rights in East Pakistan perpetrated by the Pakistan Army with support from local political and religious militias. Time...
Male Gendercide was also carried out by
Pol potSaloth Sar or Minh Hai, , widely known as Pol Pot, , was the leader of the Cambodian communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge and was Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976–1979....
in
CambodiaThe Kingdom of Cambodia , formerly known as Kampuchea , is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 14 million people. The kingdom's capital and largest city is Phnom Penh...
, resulting in a large percentage of Cambodia's population afterwards being women.
During the
1984 Anti-Sikh riotsThe 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also called the pogroms and massacre, were triggered by the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by two of her Sikh bodyguards. The assassination itself was in retaliation for her order of Operation Bluestar, in which the Indian Army attacked Sikh militants...
men were targeted overwhelmingly on account of them being breadwinners of the family.
More recent examples include the 1988 Anfal campaign against Kurdish men and boys in
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
and the
Srebrenica massacreThe Srebrenica Massacre, also known as the Srebrenica Genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the ethnic cleansing of 25,000-30,000 refugees in the area of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the...
of
BosniakThe Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller autochthonous population also present in the Sandžak, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia. Bosniaks are typically characterized by their tie to the Bosnian historical region,...
men and boys on July 12, 1995.
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