Violent Femininity: Exploring Representations of Women’s Violence in Global Politics

Abstract

Women are becoming increasingly visible as violent perpetrators in global politics, yet the gendered language used to describe them betrays a collective uneasiness with their wilful participation. The inability, or unwillingness, to accept women’s capacity to choose their violence has led to gendered representations which seek to obscure their agency in order to uphold the boundaries of permissible femininity. Merging the gendered narratives outlined by Sjoberg and Gentry (2007, 2015), with a strong contextual component advocated for by Seal (2010) allows for a holistic examination of the ways that these representations of violent women seek to portray them as being victimized, mentally disturbed, or defective women. This research utilizes discourse analysis to analyze these narratives, culminating in an in-depth study of the representations of Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the first woman to be convicted of genocide at an international criminal court for her actions during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.