Gendered Aspects of the Armenian Genocide in the Experiences of its Victimized Females with Anna Aleksanyan

The Armenian Genocide had a precise gendered logic. First of all, the perpetrators destroyed intellectuals and the male population. As women and girls represented productive and reproductive resources, they were targeted not only for physical annihilation but also forced assimilation. Systematic abduction of Armenian women and girls, forced marriages were ordered by the central government and implemented by the local population. The deportation of women, children and the elderly to a remote desert in Ottoman Syria was accompanied by mass humiliations (such as forced nudity and gang rape) and starvation, as well as mass killings. Through archival research Anna Aleksanyan analyzes the gendered aspects of the genocide as well as the role of pre-genocide gender dynamics and cultural practices in the form that the genocide took and its motivations.

Aleksanyan holds a BA & MA in History, and she is now a Ph.D. candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. Her dissertation explores gendered aspects of the Armenian Genocide in the experiences of its victimized females. Before starting her Ph.D., Anna worked at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute as a scientific researcher for seven years. She has published both in academic journals and in non-academic publications in Armenian, Russian, French, Turkish and English.

Registration for this event is closed. If you have an AUP ID card and wish to attend the event, you can simply come to the event location at the beginning of the event.