Parliament is now the last bastion of male chauvinism

From right, Nyeri County Women Representative Priscilla Nyokabi, ODM chairman John Mbadi, TNA Party Chairman Johnson Sakaja, Kenya Women Parliamentarians Chair Cecily Mbarire during a press conference on two third rule voting in parliament. PHOTO | ANTHONY OMUYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Women are joining leadership — on the boards of management of schools, on cattle dip committees, in businesses, civil society, church and other facets of life — despite the great obstacles in their way, except in Parliament.
  • County assemblies have met the constitutional threshold of not having not more than two-thirds representation of one gender, but at the national level, this has become a Mission Impossible.

Last week, I sat as a first-time co-opted member of the board of management of Mahanga ‘K’ Secondary School in Lugari, and so this week, I beg leave from the usual idiom of this column.

Six women also sit on the board, thus fulfilling the legal and constitutional requirement for gender inclusivity. On a good day, Principal Enock Keya of the five-year-old school can tell you of his wandering search in the local community for women who completed secondary school to join the board, but he has found his one-third of the board.

If a cargo train is not hurtling down the railway line 400 metres away in the valley, River Chekalini roars its floodwaters into the Nzoia River estuary, but Mahanga ‘K’ does not admit students to enjoy the sights.

In fact, its students are not the calibre that dances on television after the release of primary school results. Its boys and girls ride six to eight kilometres on World Bicycle Relief donations to school every morning. Although connected to the power grid, supply never exceeds two weeks in a term before the transformer blows up.

Total enrolment, 216 students and growing; mean grade, 3.8 in a candidate population of 23 — with one Grade E and 10 D minuses last year. From the minutes of the previous meeting, the number of pregnancies had reduced.

About this time last year, the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice toured the greater western Kenya region, and repeatedly heard — from Sirisia in Bungoma to Butali in Kakamega and Mundika in Busia — that defilement had reached epidemic levels.

Children who are defiled are robbed of their innocence and their potential to be all that they can be. In fact, they often cannot ‘qualify’ to sit on boards of management if they do not return to school after pregnancy.

FAIR ELECTIONS

Everywhere in Kenya, women are joining leadership — on the boards of management of schools, on cattle dip committees, in businesses, civil society, church and other facets of life — despite the great obstacles in their way, except in Parliament. County assemblies have met the constitutional threshold of not having not more than two-thirds representation of one gender, but at the national level, this has become a Mission Impossible.

It started with the Attorney General seeking refuge in the Supreme Court for not drafting a law to allow for fair elections between genders and bought two years.

Last year, the National Assembly bought another year by extending the Supreme Court deadline to pass a law that would enable Kenya to elect a leadership that includes women and men.

It needs to be stated without equivocation that the National Assembly and the Senate are the last bastions of male chauvinism.

Unfortunately, the National Commission on Gender and Equality and everyone else in between believes that the monster that is Parliament is going to cede space to women by being petted, stroked and cooed to. Circular arguments about leadership being handed out on a silver platter, and women being asked to roll up their sleeves and compete with men thrive because conversations about gender inclusion are restricted to Nairobi with its distorted social realities.

Even if all the 178 ayes, 16 nays and five abstentions in Parliament this week had voted to pass the Gender Bill, they would not have met the 233-member threshold for a constitutional amendment. All of Kenya was taken for a ride — again.

The gender principle was not included in the Constitution as a favour. It responded to power emerging from a constituency. That constituency needs to be summoned back to duty to de-campaign the 150-odd Members of Parliament who did not put in a show when the vote was being taken a second time.

Then focus can turn to the 16 who voted No — perhaps they need to enjoy leadership on the basis of an exclusive male franchise somewhere.