One for the arm, one for the firm

Women in Kenya are still more likely to be judged by their physical features than by the content of their brains. PHOTO | NATION

What you need to know:

  • Are beauty and brains mutually exclusive, and do women really have to dumb it down to get ahead?
  • Women in Kenya are still more likely to be judged by their physical features than by the content of their brains. Western societies, where men and women are more likely to be equal, see less emphasis on a woman’s looks, with polled men increasingly reporting they preferred brains over beauty, and more households having female providers and house-husbands. 
  • Dianne insists that women do themselves an injustice by failing to use their “feminine wiles where necessary. I’m not saying you should sleep your way up the corporate ladder. But if a fitting dress and a charming smile will get you through the door long enough for you to pitch your proposal and get your project rolling, where’s the harm in that?”

We meet in one of the many new coffee houses in Westlands. Dianne (not her real name), struts in and rapidly plants air kisses on each of my cheeks; several patrons’ heads turn towards us. Seemingly unaware of the attention, she sits, rummages through her bag and, looking up at me, asks if I mind if she smoked. I say no, absolutely not. Cigarette fitted into a golden filter, smoke lazily wafting over and disappearing behind her long, silky, jet-black hair weave, she leans back and shoots a disarming smile.

Dianne is a classic beauty – flawless, caramel-glazed skin, a matte earthy lipstick over her full lips, eyes that exude a piercing (and mischievous) charm and a body, because of a frame shy of 6 feet, one would be fooled to think was slender if not for a subtle voluptuousness accentuated by lazy, white linen pants. She’s effortlessly attractive.

At 37 years of age, Dianne, who holds a degree in an industrial science, is also, in her own words, “a very successful business woman.” When her ex-husband founded a company that provided telecommunications infrastructure for network operators, Dianne says she happened to be in the right place at the right time (i.e. married to him).

After that, she slowly but surely navigated her way from ‘wife’ to a managerial post in his company. “You ask me whether beauty and brains are mutually exclusive,” she mutters amid a puff, “I say no. People assume that just because I wear long hair (weaves) and I smoke and I do not conceal my sensuality, they assume I can’t read or write – that all I have to do is sit there and look pretty while (foreign) men take care of me.”

While Dianne admits that, 10 years ago, she had gotten her ex-husband’s attention primarily because of her looks, she however argues, “that’s just what it takes to get them (men) to notice you long enough for you to slowly unpack your brains. This world, my industry especially, is ran by men. If you are starting out and sitting there armed with nothing but your brains, you’ll be sitting for a long minute.”

CHANGING TIMES

“I don’t think the argument is whether beautiful women are capable of being smart,” says 47-year-old Micheal Mureithi. “That’s a simplistic argument.”

Mureithi, a finance manager in a parastatal, argues that many women are both. “I can barely keep my head straight in my post-graduate class – we have four women in a class of 15 – sassy, gorgeous, independent and a little intimidating to be honest. So beauty and brains are not mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, it depends on the woman’s goals and what they want to capitalise on. For example I find it interesting that none of the four women in my class are married – so maybe their ‘brains’ aren’t working out on that front, or maybe it’s not their goal to get married. “

Nevertheless, Mureithi describes the prospect of women having to dumb it down in order to get married as ‘dumb’. This is an interesting response from him; when I ask him whether he would rather marry an extremely gorgeous woman who was not intelligent or an extremely intelligent woman who was not easy on the eye, he quips, “Can I marry both? – the first one for my arm and the other for my firm…”

A recent study at the University of York in England concluded that the higher a country’s gender inequality, the more value the society attaches to a woman’s appearance and the less the value of  her intellect. This study, carried out by psychologists, found that societies with higher gender inequality tend to be more invested in ‘traditional evolutionary traits’. Women prefer wealthy men who can provide for the family and men prefer ‘young, curvy women’ because this femininity announces their fertility and good housekeeping abilities. 

The UNDP measures a country’s standing in gender inequality by looking at reproductive health, empowerment and labour opportunities and participation. From the data, they come up with the Gender Inequality Index (GII). A perfect GII would be 0.000, which no country has achieved yet. The current data (from 2014) ranks Slovenia at the top with a GII score of 0.016. Kenya is at number 126 with a 0.522 GII. Yemen, ranked last at number 155, has a 0.744 GII.

Kenya is closer to Yemen than to Slovenia. And although we have risen from number 130 (in 2011) and our GII improved from 0.627, we are still ranked in the ‘low human development’ category in the UNDP list.

Going by the York study, women in Kenya are still more likely to be judged by their physical features than by the content of their brains. Western societies, where men and women are more likely to be equal, see less emphasis on a woman’s looks, with polled men increasingly reporting they preferred brains over beauty, and more households having female providers and house-husbands. 

INVESTMENT IN LOOKS

Dr. Wandia Njoya, a graduate of the prestigious Penn State University and head of the Language and Performing Arts department at Daystar University, has a thing or two to say about women, marriage and empowerment. A certified academic, her getting married at the age of 44 became an inspiration to many who know her. “When my wedding was announced, women students were excited to know that education doesn’t make them unmarriageable. They said that now they can go on with their studies without worrying about whether they’ll get married – after all, Dr. Wandia got married.”

She admits that she found – and still finds – it strange that even women who are pursuing their undergraduate degrees, let alone post-graduate degrees, worry that their education will make them unmarriageable. “When I decided to go for my Masters the relationship I was in ended. People were asking me whether I had asked for his permission – I’m not used to asking for permission from anyone.”

Even though Dr. Wandia acknowledges she had wished to get married earlier (by our society’s standard, 44 is ‘very late’) she is very adamant that women shouldn’t have to compromise their education for marriage. “If you want to go to school and your husband doesn’t want you to, and you make that compromise so you can stay married, you will only be postponing the problem. Marriage will happen in God’s own good time.” As it were, she is a currently in a marriage where being empowered and being a wife aren’t mutually exclusive. 

A quick poll among eight career women between the ages of 28 and 45 indicate that all of them consider themselves to have both brains and beauty. One of them, a 29-year-old sitting her Kenya Bar examination is of the opinion that when a woman is accomplished, the confidence and opportunities put her in a position to groom, dress and make herself up. “I suppose,” she says, “successful women are likely to be intelligent and are also better able to invest in their looks.”

The argument as to which of the two traits facilitate success (by whichever definition) is varied. The career women tend more towards the idea that brains are more important in achieving fulfilling goals. Cecelia, a 37-year-old single woman who runs an African artifacts export business says that while she feels respected in business circles, she is not blind to the fact that most of her (male) associates “have girls my nieces’ age hanging on their arms.

“At the end of the day,” she says, “whether it’s in dating, family, social or work circles, I don’t think it’s a question of beauty versus brains per se, but the battle between submission and power.”

So while women like Dianne straddle the spectrum between submission and power, those like Cecelia say they lack the ability (and patience) to do so, “and for that reason we are known as too headstrong (to keep a man). Even if I want a man in my life I don’t want to have to tone down my intellect or show cleavage.”

Dianne insists that women do themselves an injustice by failing to use their “feminine wiles where necessary. I’m not saying you should sleep your way up the corporate ladder. But if a fitting dress and a charming smile will get you through the door long enough for you to pitch your proposal and get your project rolling, where’s the harm in that?” Stressing that every woman is naturally beautiful and sexy, she wonders why one would work so hard at suppressing these traits. “I’m a woman! I’m not going to wear an ugly, oversized power suit and smoke a cigar so I can be taken seriously by the boys. I can’t beat them at their own game.” 

Six out of eight men we polled (all professional in their 30s and early 40s) say they would rather date a beautiful less intelligent woman than vice-versa. Kenya’s Gender Inequality Index tells this tale in one number.