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Kenya: Challenging the Politics of Exclusion

Wanjiku Wa Ngugi

1 August 2007

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Nairobi — WE OUGHT TO WORRY that the gender question in Kenya, and in Africa at large, has lost its impetus and important issues raised by feminists over the years have become convoluted.

More than 12 years after the Beijing Conference, it is unacceptable that women are still not full citizens, as citizenship rights have continued to be differentiated by gender.

Indeed, women have remained outside the legal and political reality of citizenship.

I always argue that the women's question is the most misunderstood concept in our society today. I also argue that simply calling for more women leaders in Parliament and elsewhere will not necessarily cause a major shift in relation to women's legal, political, or cultural reality.

Although more women have entered into mainstream politics, this has not meant that they have carried with them a transformative agenda to Parliament. The body politic is still male-oriented and patriarchal.

While women's movements are mushrooming, their lives have become more vulnerable. For example, violence against women has risen rather sharply and objectification of the female body has increased, as seen in the beauty pageants and music videos. It is imperative that women re-learn how to make choices that are informed. This means being able to distinguish whether it is based on a patriarchal, or submissive way of viewing women.

Women are bombarded with the same objectified female images as the men, and have learned to respond to their bodies in the same way that men do.

We should re-centre our lives so that we just are, without the patriarchal tag that is so embedded in our lives.

We should adopt an agenda that will engage women at all levels - in the private and public spheres - recognising that what is private is, indeed, public. If a woman is oppressed at home, it will have a direct impact on her public life.

GENDER IS A SOCIO-CULTURAL CONstruct and it is, therefore, important to address the social context within which it is created. This means that gender concepts rooted in African cultural experiences should be critically examined.

I find it interesting that whenever the gender question pops up, traditional cultural logic is always used to defend the privileges of males. Traditional practices employed by society and their allied concepts need to be analysed and changed where necessary.

In addition, advocates of gender equality also need to address the identities constructed through inherited customs. For instance, the way in which roles are created around the woman as 'nurturer' and the man as the 'provider', are key to the way gender disparities are created in society.

There is an ingrained but problematic idea that mothers should first and foremost be wives, instead of just mothers.

Of course I am not advocating that women should not get married, but rather arguing that this is the way we begin to categorise our women differently -divorcee, widow, unmarried - and so on. Why can't women just be women?

During Moi's reign of terror in Kenya, he was challenged by Prof Wangari Maathai. In one of his many aggressive responses to her, Moi publicly asked, "...What can a divorcee tell us...?"

Women must not only continue to demand more space for themselves, they should also participate in, and carve out, intellectual space.

It is vital to contribute towards the processing and production of knowledge in society. This will enable us to actually form identities that empower us that are neither oppressive nor exclusionary.

Ms Ngugi is an editor with the Centre for the Advancement of African Languages and Literatures.

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