Don’t let husband beating undermine women’s empowerment

The Kenyan media have lately been awash with stories of men who have been brutalised by their wives.

What started as husband attacks in Nyeri have lately spread to confessions by victims in Kiambu and Taita Taveta counties.

No doubt others will soon follow. More men who have hidden the shame and pain inflicted by their spouses will come forward after the ice-breaking from the foot of Tumutumu hills.

Listening to talk shows and scanning the print and social media, one can discern a drift towards hilarious bemusement at either the gender role reversals, the non-men of Nyeri or the unique mannerisms of Nyeri women.

Few are the cases of serious attempts to help us come to terms with what pressures are boiling over in these unusual happenings. Even less is said on what negative impact the reported cases may have on the larger challenges of women’s empowerment in the country.

First, the level of attention being given to these cases is overwhelming. Not because Kenyans are peace loving people averse to brutalisation at home. Cases of wife battering are too many and too widespread in Kenya to draw our attention.

We have tended to treat male to female violence at home as some culturally justified form of maintaining social order. It is when the assumed mute object of discipline steps out of the prescribed role and shows emotion in the same way that the usual aggressor does, that it becomes news. Nyeri has gripped the nation because it is a case of the shoe being on the other foot.

In the coming days, sociologists and other social analysts will get to work to help us understand the dynamics shifting the shoe. The veil will be lifted on the social decay induced by uncontrolled acquisitiveness. Remember the eminent lawyer from Kiambu who complained recently that he is being beaten regularly by his wife who thinks the family is just about making money.

We will see more evidence of how cheap alcohol is turning men into vegetables that cannot even raise an arm to fend off some of the blows aimed at the face.

We will reflect on how, as women dominate domestic economic production in rural Kenya, they increasingly cannot continue to meekly surrender the fruits of their labour to men who spend their days whining away in the local market place waiting to collect the bonus payment or the milk cash and waste it on Yokozuna and Kumi Kumi.

We cannot wait to see some light cast on the impact of the Chama and other women’s investment clubs on the traditional assumptions that the family is the primary economic unit.

But while we await these revelations, we can worry about some of the potential reversals that the husband battering stories can bring to our society. Much public comment has tended to use the reported crimes as a reason to question the probity of gender equity. I have listened to well-schooled men blame what is happening in Nyeri on women’s empowerment.

All of a sudden, we are seeing incredible wordage spent on painting the male victim. Maendeleo ya Wanaume is given a fresh lease of relevance as we question women’s empowerment initiatives. Those calling themselves “real men” are declaring how they will firm up their physical leadership as enforcers in their homes.

These developments could not have come at a more unfortunate time. For the substantial promise of gender fairness in the Kenya Constitution to take root, there is need for more bold partnership between men and women than we have been used to.

Provisions in the Bill of Rights which seek to break the hold of custom on women’s emancipation require more engagement and mutual appreciation between men and women. Effecting the provisions on land inheritance that break with the customary law of most Kenyan communities will require unusual patience and unlearning the assumptions of young women as tradable goods the way many of our societies have inculcated into us.

Hysteria created from the few cases of male-battering runs the risk of reinforcing traditional attitudes and even reversing some of the gains made in the recent past. It brings to mind how the traditional Kikuyu society has used the mythical story of ancient days when women rulers were brutal oppressors to justify holding back ascendance of women into leadership roles.

As the country prepares to elect a new government, issues relevant to women require a place at the table. Nobody is promising targeted investment in play schools and kindergartens to ease the burden of the urban working mother.

No prodding is forcing candidates to address the high dropped out of girls from secondary schools reversing the gains of near parity in primary school education. These concerns will recede even further if the nation is consumed superficially with vilifying women on the basis of the reported cases of husband battering.

The writer is a director of the Kenya Institute of Governance [email protected]