The Feminine Mystique


There's a certain strain of feminism distinguished by its rejection of the notion that women are merely equals of men. I've always considered this to be utter nonsense.

There's a certain strain of feminism distinguished by its rejection of the notion that women are merely equals of men. I've always considered this to be utter nonsense.

There's a certain strain of feminism distinguished by its rejection of the notion that women are merely equals of men. If only women ran the world, its disciples sigh, there would be no war, no violence, no rape, no oppression, no assorted other bad stuff. I've always considered this to be utter nonsense. True, the worst monsters of history have all been male, but women have historically lacked access to the sort of power required to order mass slaughter. Women's better record is more a matter of opportunity than motivation.

Those who disagree may wish to read about Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the former Rwandan minister of family and women's affairs, and the first woman to go on trial for genocide.



Pauline once traveled the countryside lecturing on female empowerment, child care, and AIDS prevention. In the spring of 1994, she returned to her home town of Butare, where, clad in military fatigues and toting a machine gun, she presided over the massacre of thousands of people from the Tutsi ethnic group. She was hardly alone, as during this period approximately 800,000 Tutsi were killed in the Hutu-led government's gruesome policy of ethnic cleansing. As the article describes, the Hutu militias did not simply kill, but also raped at least a quarter million women, as a deliberate tactic of demoralization. Many of the women were then killed, after being subjected to horrific mutilation.

One might imagine that Pauline, even if she endorsed her government's policy of ethnic elimination would, as a woman, have done her best to restrain her followers from rape. One would be wrong.

According to witnesses, Pauline instead goaded her followers, commanding, "Before you kill the women, you need to rape them." In another incident, she ordered her men to take cans of gasoline from her car and use it to burn a group of women to death. A surviving rape victim who had been left alive as a witness to Hutu "progress" testified that she had seen numerous atrocities, including rape, mutilation, and murders of women. All the while, she testified, she heard the soldiers say, "We are doing what was ordered by Pauline Nyiramasuhuko."

How could Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a woman and a mother, have done such things? The article cannot really answer such a question. Judging from the interviews with her family and aquaintances, she was an extremely ambitious person, concerned mainly with her own advancement, and it is not clear whether she was motivated by genuine animosity towards Tutsis, or by sheer opportunism. Bizarrely, she herself could have been classified as a Tutsi, reminiscent of Nazi leaders who themselves had Jewish ancestry. In the end, her case says nothing about women's nature, but offers a sadly familiar glimpse into the worst of human nature.

Posted: Sun - April 20, 2003 at 01:16 PM      

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