Forced male circumcision
Gender-based violence in Kenya
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4844971 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J Auchter (0000-0002-2686-5948, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1339-1356 |
| Publication date | 2017-11-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ia/iix183 |
| OpenAlex | W2754921030 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
Forced male circumcision has not yet been recognized as a specific gendered human rights abuse in international humanitarian law. This article takes the first step towards assessing these acts by considering them in the context of post-election violence in Kenya in 2007. This case allows for the exploration of how forced male circumcision was used in a context of political violence and militia-led—and often state-sanctioned—terror. The article thus considers multiple legal issues and concerns that arise from this sort of violence in different contexts. I situate the case within a larger framework of conventional understandings on gender and violence as a means to question them and render them problematic. Specifically, I argue that understanding sexual violence as exclusively targeting women prevents appropriate prosecution of forced male circumcisions in Kenya and of sexual violence against men more generally. Sexual violence against men involves forms of emasculation in which perpetrators seek to feminize their victims by rendering them weak, violated and passive, in contradistinction to stereotypical masculine ideals. If one's relationship to femininity is a crucial issue in sexual violence, whether the victims are men or women, then being able to properly account for cases like Kenya, in both a political and a legal sense, is crucial to legal accountability for sexual violence more broadly.
Context (archaeology) · Criminology · Forced marriage · Geography · Human rights · Political science · Politics · Sexual violence · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law
From ‘It Rarely Happens’ to ‘It’s Worse for Men’
Examining the Appropriateness of Gender-Inclusion as a Humanitarian Response Mechanism for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence against Men
Violence against Women in Politics
What about men? Towards a critical interrogation of sexual violence against men in global politics
Broadening the scope but reasserting male privilege? Potential patriarchal pitfalls of inclusive approaches to gender-based violence
Disrupting peace at home”? Narrating connections between sexual violence perpetrated by armed men and intimate partner violence in (post-)conflict settings
Homosexualization” revisited
Comparing Conflict-related Sexual Violence
Men Have Gender and Women Are People
Torture and sexual violence in war and conflict
Forced male circumcision and the politics of foreskin in Kenya
| Citations per year | 1.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2022 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |