Prof Ali Mazrui
7 October 2007
column
Nairobi — In a two-part article, I will explore two paradoxes regarding gender. In this piece, I will explore the universal contradiction of gender and the specific paradox of the African- American male.
The collective paradox contrasts masculinity at war with femininity and motherhood. The specific paradox looks at the African-American male both as a success story in sports, religion, entertainment and the military and as the ultimate victim of racism - it remains to be explored if there is a connection between the two views.
One area of possible insight is the phenomenon of marching in the Black experience. Is it an intermediate area of combat? Is the sub-culture of marching disproportionately male?
Underlying this problem of power in relations between men and women is what might be called the paradox of gender. This influences politics, economics, war and peace. But what is the contradiction of gender? It consists of three propositions.
First, among humans, the senior partner in the creation of new life is the female -woman the mother.
Second, the senior partner in the destruction of life is the male -man as the warrior. Third, it is the power of destruction that has given the male dominion over the female -man as the ruler.
The argument here is that the origins of male dominance do not lie in economic but in military specialisation. Women till the land, the means of production. They control the womb, the means of reproduction. But they do not control the means of physical coercion -spear, the bow and arrow and, later, the gun.
Pregnancy a moment of life
Even being senior partner in giving life can be militarily a weakness. Pregnancy is a moment of life - enhancement for a woman. It is also a moment of physical vulnerability. While motherhood is a qualification for centrality, pregnancy can be a disqualification for power, at least according to a Kikuyu mythology, Wangu wa Makeri.
The fable says she was appointed the 'headman', the first and only female of the entire colonial period.
This myth is about the destruction of matriarchy. It recounts how men staged a coup against women power. The strategy of the coup was not about how to capture the armoury, but how to get all women in the village pregnant. The men knew women were at their most vulnerable at their most creative moment - when heavy with a child. This way, it was easy to conquer them.
Historical view
In The River Between, Ngugi wa Thiong'o revisits the issue. Also founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, relives the fable in Facing Mount Kenya.
Kenyatta makes a case as to why matriarchy had to go. When they were the dominant force, the women rulers had become domineering and ruthless fighters. As a result of sexual jealousy, men were executed for committing acts of adultery and lesser offences. Women even went as far as practicing polyandry. Ultimately, men were subjected to all kinds of humiliation and injustice. The coup by impregnation became a critical political imperative.
There may be more evocative stories of dis-powerment of women in African legend and mythology.
The Kikuyu myth about the destruction of matriarchy is perhaps only one case in point.
But there is also the great Ethiopian story about the seduction of Queen of Sheba by King Solomon of the Jews.
Royal seductions
The Queen of Ethiopia was invited to Israel by the wise King Solomon. The King was enchanted by the African Queen, but she did not respond to the majesty's overtures. That night, after a banquet, the King finally seduced both Sheba and her maid. After this, two future dynasties of Ethiopia were separately conceived-a dual impregnation of historic proportions.
Sheba's baby son grew up to become Menelik I. The Solomonic patriarchy of Ethiopia came into being. And according to Ethiopian tradition and legend, was to last for three thousand years.
I personally knew the last Lion of Judah; His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I. I met him first in Uganda and later in Ethiopia. He was overthrown in 1974, ending a dynasty that claimed descent from a Royal seduction three millennia previously.
The seduction of Sheba by Solomon is, in a sense, the reverse of the seduction of Adam by Eve. In the Ethiopian legend, man seduces woman and the outcome is royal patriarchy. In the Biblical story, woman seduces man and the outcome is mortality.
Both stories are 'male-centric'.
When the sinner is a man, Royal Solomonic patriarchy in Ethiopia is glorious. In the Bible, Eve is a scapegoat and the result is dishonour and the first sin.
How far can we hold certain interpretations of religion accountable for malignant sexism?
Matriarchy in Kikuyuland ended as a result of indigenous collective impregnation. Matriarchy in Ethiopia was undermined as a result of exogenous royal impregnation. Male dominion over the female was consolidated not only in Kikuyu land and the plateaus of Abyssinia but almost all over Africa. The paradox of gender continues to yield male political supremacy.
Colonialism and Westernisation may have solved some problems, but they did not solve the gender problem. Western culture sometimes marginalises instead of giving women equal opportunity.
The writer is the Chancellor, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
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