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I will quote from Adam Jones on the question of reporting rape in the Kosovo war. The article by Jones comes out one year after Clinton's remark, so it is a good indication of attitudes prevalent at the time. I see from your remarks that matters have not changed. Adams writes:
Another phenomenon in public discussion of the Kosovo war and the Balkans more generally has been the privileging of rape or mass rape of women over the slaughter or mass slaughter of (non-combatant) males. The implicit prioritizing of sexually-assaulted women, often on ambiguous or scanty evidence, reflected both age-old biases and more recent feminist activism on the issue of mass rapes in Bosnia and elsewhere. While feminist research in this area is to be commended and learned from, it has also contributed to a one-sided depiction of the atrocities of war that tends to consign the male victim to oblivion.
Again, this is not to minimize atrocities committed against women. Mentioning widespread violence against non-combatant males does not amount to a repudiation of feminism. When I read someone who writes that it makes sense not to lump battle-age males in with women, children and the elderly since all battle age males are participants, then I see that non-combatant battle-age males are in that person's blind spot. It's the same blind spot in the media. Clinton had it also. Clinton is not representing men by privileging women as the primary victims of violence in war. But perhaps she has read Adam Jones ad interim.
