The postcolonial politics of militarizing Rwandan women:an analysis of the extremist magazine Kangura and the gendering of a genocidal nation-state

Abstract

Rwanda has been used by many feminist scholars of international relations as a casestudy to play out understandings of gender-based violence in war and “civil war.” Few femi-nists have analyzed the mass rape of Rwandan women in the context of a carefully planned and prepared genocide. This article considers the ways in which, in the years leading up to April 1994, the Rwandan nation-state became increasingly militarized and masculinized. It exam-ines the extremist propaganda magazine Kangura’s use of cartoons to militarize Rwandanwomen—not just as wives, mothers and prostitutes—but as political subjects.