Who will stand up for the boy, in the face of feminist juggernaut?
Pupils on their way to school. FILE PHOTO | TOM OTIENO |
What you need to know:
- The gender campaign in Kenya has adopted a monolithic approach.
- While I support affirmative action, it often tends to fix the symptoms and not the system.
By Mike Kuria
I was one of the panellists at the Micere Mugo gender campaign debate at Riara University, off Mbagathi Way in Nairobi recently.
The topic was “The Gender Campaign in Kenya: Are we Making Progress?”
Novelist Zukiswa Wanner has argued that in the so-called debate, there was no dissenting voice (Saturday Nation, June 13). I beg to differ. Mine was a dissenting voice.
First I argued that both men and women need emancipation from mental slavery with regard to the patriarchal system.
This system, defined and controlled by men for the benefit of men, has invented a protocol based on duties and responsibilities, where men wield power and women are on the receiving end of that power. We have all become its slaves. Here is why.
First, women are so controlled by this system that even in the privacy of secret polling booths they still obey it.
The patriarchal system might argue that it is impossible for a woman to become president but with the power of the vote women can make a woman president.
MENTAL SLAVERY
Second, men are not free either. Men falsely believe that the patriarchal system works in their favour. Not anymore.
For example, the system defines men as heads and providers for their homes even after the means to solely hold and sustain those positions was withdrawn years ago.
Mental slavery to this system makes men think they must play certain roles only because they are male.
I also argued that we need to focus less on fixing symptoms and more on fixing systems.
While I support affirmative action, it often tends to fix the symptoms and not the system.
With the exception of a few, such as Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndung’u, there is hardly anything to show for the so-called women’s representatives. They are products of a patriarchal political system!
MONOLITHIC APPROACH
Finally I argued that the gender campaign in Kenya has adopted a monolithic approach.
In some cases in some areas, it’s boys who need attention. There are some regions in this country where the dropout rate for boys in primary school is so high that we should be worried.
In some universities, such as Daystar University, the ratio of girls to boys is about 60:40 or worse. We should not celebrate imbalance in whichever direction it is skewed.
Micere Mugo was supposed to summarise the ideas advanced by the panellists and end with her own conclusion.
She openly disagreed with me and argued that injustice against girls and women has been so widespread it deserves special attention before we can talk of boys.
The focus on gender imbalance need not exclude either sex at any one point. I feel that Micere Mugo did not deliberately mix the points by the men.
Could she be a product of a feminist system that silences dissent with regard to its ideals, and especially if coming from men? Deliberately or otherwise, the dissenting voice was silenced in her final remarks!
