These stereotypical narratives are never more obvious than in declarations and resolutions dealing with conflict-related sexual violence. UNSC Resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), but also 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013) and all subsequent others seem to assume that sexual violence has universal effects on the victims; they also presuppose universal hierarchical gender relations and overlook the diversity of individual experiences. As recognized by a report published by the UN itself, “The Security Council Resolutions from 1325-2122 focus on female victims; male victims are mentioned only once, in UNSCR 2106, some thirteen years after the UNSCR 1325 was passed. As such, the Women, Peace and Security lens may have inadvertently led to adverse and exclusionary programming practices in the field” (UN 2013, 7). Suffering that is experienced at the individual level is reinterpreted, reconstructed and framed in international discourses in a way that reduces and negates the individuals’ agency, and these discourses are singularly blind to the multiplicity of the survivors’ experiences, and to the individuals’ resiliency. UNSC Resolution 1820 (2008) is particularly representative of that type of framing. As shown by Seto (2013, 67), “Resolution 1820 treats sexual violence as a ‘fixed reality’ of the experience of women. It reinforces the idea that women are continuously vulnerable to the dealings of the public sphere”. These discourses restrict women’s and men’s agency, oversimplify women’s and men’s experiences of conflict, and overlook the fact that many women (and men) who have been victims of sexual violence develop multiple strategies to cope with, and recover from, what they went through. They also overlook the fact that individuals who have been raped or survived different types of sexual violence have the ability to redefine their social identities after the conflict, even if this ability is constrained by various political, material, social and cultural factors (Skjelsbæk 2006, 396). Further, Otto argues (2009, 24), “the assumption in Resolution 1820 that sexual violence is always perpetrated by men against women and children promotes homophobic mythologies and stigma, making it virtually impossible for male victims to speak out, let alone join the queue of evacuees”. This has obvious consequences not only in terms of access to medical and psychological support, but also in terms of asylum seeking procedures, of reparation and prosecution of perpetrators, and so on. These narratives make it very complicated for male survivors, even when they belong to particularly vulnerable categories, such as refugees, internally displaced, sexual minorities, migrant workers, or disabled, to have their plight recognized. In other words, picturing women as passive victims of sexual violence, and men as senseless perpetrators of this violence is not just inaccurate, it is also perpetuating a conflict narrative in which women have no chance to ever reach and develop any kind of agency; it also throws suspicion on all men, and prevents male survivors from being seen, heard and supported.
In these discourses, women are always depicted as being in a position of inferiority, vulnerability (Butler 2014), need and lacking, when men remain in their position of decision-makers, of power-holders, to the point that, as Charlesworth argues (2008, 358), “women have become the metaphor for vulnerable/victim in war”. UNSC Resolution 1325, for instance, emphasizes the importance of taking “into account the special needs of women and girls”. These statements are built on the very gendered assumption that women are submissive victims; the attention is focused on their incapability to help themselves, and this reinforces their “a-political-ness”. The focus that is put on civilian women as victims of wartime sexual violence is equally problematic, because it suggests that non-civilians cannot be victimized, when in fact a large proportion of sexual violence, like, for instance, sexual torture, is committed in military settings, and especially in detention, as explained by Sivakumaran (2010, 271): “Sexual violence is committed against civilians but not against civilians alone. Much of the sexual violence that takes place against men and boys is carried out in situations of detention, against prisoners of war and members of the armed forces or armed group. It is also carried out against ‘child soldiers’, both boys and girls. Yet none of these forms of sexual violence is covered by SC Res 1820 with its exclusive focus on civilians”.
The stress put on the vulnerability of civilian women is epitomized by the repeated association of the words “women and children”: “Using words such as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘exploitation’, and continually running together the two collective nouns ‘women and children’ serve to associate women with children and thereby bracket the two together conceptually, constructing what Cynthia Enloe calls ‘womenandchildren’ (1990)” (Shepherd 2008, 41). Considering the fact that children are often depicted as devoid of agency, as in need of constant care and protection, this association between women and children raises important questions about how the international community contributes to the (symbolic, but maybe also material) disempowerment of women, and the parallel empowerment of (some) men, in zones of conflict. Furthermore, this association promotes a narrow understanding of the situation and needs of women, by putting the stress on their duties as mothers—as providers of care to their children—overlooking the fact that women might have needs totally unrelated to their status as mothers—or that they might not be mothers at all.
Crucially, narratives about conflict-related sexual violence build on “silent others”, men, who are by contrast understood to be responsible for the suffering of women. UNSC Resolution 1820 (2008) states, for instance, that “women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group”. The assumption that it is men who are targeting women by the use of sexual violence is implicit, overlooking the fact that, for instance, in a region like Eastern DRC, famously named the “world capital of rape”, it is estimated that more than 40% of perpetrators of sexual violence against women are women themselves (Johnson et al. 2010). These discourses build on an assumed link between heterosexuality and rape (as well as on a reduced understanding of sexual violence to rape), pertaining to a strong heteronormativity which obscures the existence of wartime sexual violence against men. As a corollary, men are asked to change their behavior and stop from engaging in sexual violence (Otto 2009, 14). This once again builds on the assumption that men hold power over women, and is “congruent with existing gender narratives, which tell of ‘men’ as being empowered, controlling, and active, as well as aggressive” (Shepherd 2008, 40). Men are those who, by their actions, can either perpetrate these atrocities, or put an end to them. Contrary to women, they can exercise their agency, they are in control. Violence becomes the preserve of men, a defining characteristic of masculinity, a natural part of male behavior (that thus has to be controlled). While most post structuralist feminists have underscored the fact that these narratives on wartime sexual violence essentialize and “biologize” women, the same can be said about men, who are reduced to their basic instincts. The victim/perpetrator distinction is essentialized too, and (con-)fused with the woman/man division, thus further entrenching beliefs associating women with passivity and weakness, and men with agency, power and violence.