Unfurling Genocide and the Politics of Gender Stereotypes in Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls

Unfurling Genocide and the Politics of Gender Stereotypes in Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls

Sima Kalita 

Contextualizing mass conflict or genocide, this paper endeavors to demonstrate how genocidal violence is gendered and how the politics of gender stereotypes has contributed to this genocidal violence from ancient times to modern as explored in Pat Barker’s novel The Silence of the Girls (2018). Gender stereotypes in terms of mass conflict act through the mechanism of gender-based inequality operating in patriarchal society. So, to illustrate these dynamics, this paper attempts to demonstrate how Barker’s novel projects genocide through the process of re-reading the classical Trojan War and the experiences of its forgotten victims to delve into the themes of genocidal violence, hegemonic masculinity and women’s oppression. The primary objective of the paper is to show how Barker’s novel effectively unblocks several gender-selective measures of violence used in genocide. Focusing on ‘genocide’, ‘gendercide’ and the politics of gender stereotypes, the paper intends to offer a nuanced insight towards the domain of study concerning genocide by explaining the complex interplay of several power structures. 

Key words: Genocide, gendercide, gender stereotype, power, oppression