Common Fate Different Experience Analysis

In the article, "Common Fate, Different Experience: Gender-Specific Aspects of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1917," writer Katharine Derderian argues how sexual violence and gender-specific acts were central aspects of the Armenian Genocide. Derderian explains how after the murder of the Armenian leadership and military, Ottoman authorities and Ittihadist supporters sent surviving Anatolia Armenians to the Syrian desert for extermination. During the ethnic cleansing, Armenian women faced intense violence due to females representing the “genetic and cultural continuity” of a group. Derderian states how rape, kidnapping, sex slavery, and forced marriages became tools for enforcing genocide on the Armenians. As a result, the gender-specific acts allowed the Ottoman authorities and Ittihadist supporters to destruct the integrity of the Armenians while isolating the female population from the group. In addition, Derderian reveals how the acts in the Armenian Genocide sheds a light on the situation of women during genocidal episodes. She explains how even though the Armenian Genocide and other genocidal episodes, such as the Holocaust, had different motives for their acts, they expressed common features of gender violence. Derderian forms a list of the common features while describing their purpose in relation to ethic cleansing. The list proves how …show more content…
By examining how sexual and gender-specific violence were central aspects of the Armenian Genocide, Derderian creates a layout of universal features of gender-specific violence regarding to genocidal episodes. She argues how the violence is a distinct and important element of genocide. Not only does she form a new view on genocidal episodes, but also a new subject for historians to