Like Men?

Like Men? Women Political Perpetrators of Genocide in Rwanda

The Maison Suger is pleased to host a presentation of the book Comme des hommes ? Femmes politiques génocidaires au Rwanda by Juliette Bour, published in August 2026 by CNRS Éditions, with Fabio Viti (AMU, IMAf, Société des africanistes).

The seminar will be held in french.
 

In Rwanda, the history of genocide perpetrators also has “a woman’s face.” Although the extermination of nearly one million Tutsi was a crime committed predominantly by men, an estimated 96,000 women took part in the massacres. The highly localized nature of the genocide enabled women to become involved on a large scale. While most were convicted of denouncing Tutsi, looting their property, or encouraging the killers, some ranked among the principal architects and most active organizers of the genocide. This book traces the trajectories of fifteen women perpetrators and their total commitment to the extermination process, from its planning and organization to its implementation. All of them held political leadership positions. To this day, witnesses continue to describe them as women “unlike any others”: monstrous and unstoppable. The belief persists that, as women, they should somehow have practiced politics differently. By examining these extreme trajectories, the aim is not to produce a sensationalist account. Urban, salaried, educated, politically engaged, and supported by powerful local or national networks before the outbreak of the genocide, these women leaders belonged to a new generation that gained access to positions in government administration and political parties through the so-called “women’s advancement” policies implemented during the 1980s. This intersection of gender and power invites us to move beyond static portrayals of women as inherently rebellious, exceptional, or domineering figures, and instead to understand the mechanisms that led them to participate in such extreme forms of violence.

Juliette Bour is a historian and postdoctoral researcher at the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, affiliated with the University of Antwerp and the EHESS (École des hautes études en sciences sociales). Her doctoral dissertation received recognition from the GIS Institut du Genre.

Fabio Viti is an anthropologist, professor at Aix-Marseille Université (AMU), researcher at IMAF-Aix, director of the Anthropology Department (2023-2025), member of the “Espaces, Cultures, Sociétés” doctoral school (AMU). His research topics include the political and historical anthropology of the Baoulé, slavery, personal dependency relationships, work and learning, war and violence, colonization etc. His main publications:

• Il potere debole. Antropologia politica dell'Aitu nvle (Baule, Costa d'Avorio), Milano, F. Angeli,1998, 416 p.
• Schiavi, servi e dipendenti. Antropologia delle forme di dipendenza personale in Africa, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2007, XVIII-298 p.
• Travail et apprentissage en Afrique de l'Ouest (Sénégal, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo), Paris, Karthala, 2013, 312 p.
• La Guerre au Baoulé. Une ethnographie historique du fait guerrier, Paris, Éditions de la MSH, 2024, 496 p. (→ Watch his interview on Canal-U)