Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency, and Justice

by Izabela Steflja, Jessica Trisko Darden

Women war criminals are far more common than we think. From the Holocaust to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans to the Rwandan genocide, women have perpetrated heinous crimes. Few have been punished. These women go unnoticed because their very existence challenges our assumptions about war and about women. Biases about women as peaceful and innocent prevent us from "seeing" women as war criminals—and prevent postconflict justice systems from assigning women blame. Women as War Criminals argues that women are just as capable as men of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition to unsettling assumptions about women as agents of peace and reconciliation, the book highlights the gendered dynamics of law, and demonstrates that women are adept at using gender instrumentally to fight for better conditions and reduced sentences when war ends. The book presents the legal cases of four the President (Biljana Plavšić), the Minister (Pauline Nyiramasuhuko), the Soldier (Lynndie England), and the Student (Hoda Muthana). Each woman's complex identity influenced her treatment by legal systems and her ability to mount a gendered defense before the court. Justice, as Steflja and Trisko Darden show, is not blind to gender.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gender, War, Feminism

180 pages, Paperback

Published September 8, 2020

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting quick read about how we as a society and the legal system respond to women perpetrators of war crimes. The authors critique the gendered frames through which women war criminals are looked at in the media, scholarship and legal trials, which tend to deny the agency of women and judge them against gendered norms of feminity. The book also shows how women who are accused or convicted of war crimes (four case studies are looked at) and their legal defense teams can instrumentalise these gendered stereotypes in order to downplay their responsibility for crimes. Some reference is also made to how race intersects with this gendered framing, however due to the shortness of the book this discussion unfortunately remains superficial. Overall, the book offers some really useful reflections on the intersections between gender, perpetratorhood and the sociology of international criminal justice.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly detailed and well researched book which gives an insight into how these war criminals who happen to be women are presented within wider society and how perceived biases (in both society and legal systems) that women are peaceful and innocent prevent us from “seeing” them as these people who are capable of orchestrating such crimes against humanity.

[Luke]

Pub 2020

[Christina Helms · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative and interesting but the writing was difficult to get into.