No hero coming to her rescue: gendered depictions of victimhood and agency in famine monuments

Memorials to wars and other forms of organized, direct violence traditionally depict adult, male figures, like military or political leaders and soldiers, while women's experiences are often ignored, marginalized or stereotyped. This article analyzes monuments to famines – a type of violence which is less direct and spectacular, and where deaths mostly occur at home rather than on the battlefield. The article analyzes how women, men and children, and gender roles and relations, are depicted in famine memorials. Studying 173 monuments that portray humans put up in memory of famines that occurred in Finland, Greece, Ireland, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine, it finds that famine victims are frequently portrayed as mothers, who mourn their dead or dying children. There is an absence of male heroic figures in the famine monuments. Instead, men and women are often depicted as equally vulnerable – or equally active in their quest for survival. Children often appear in the monuments, signalling vulnerability and innocence and underscoring the wickedness of those responsible for mass starvation. Generally, famine monuments often challenge engrained dichotomies between vulnerable women and courageous men, and between the private and public spheres.