It's utterly primitive to strip women naked for alleged indecent dressing

Real men don’t attack women. Only cowards and misogynists do. I am beyond disgust. Then barbaric Kenyan men who’ve been stripping women naked make me sick.

As a Kenyan, my conscience is haunted by images of Kenyan women being violently stripped naked by complete strangers in public venues. I didn’t know the Taliban had set up shop in the streets of Nairobi.

What’s even more haunting is the passivity of men who would stand by and fail to stop — and apprehend — the vile perpetrators of these unthinkable acts. The cowardly perpetrators of these heinous acts are fake men — empty frauds posing as macho men — who should be gathered in a room and forced to cook and clean for women. You can tell the level of a country’s development by the way its treats women. I am not talking about material wealth. If that were the standard, then Saudi Arabia — where women and girls can’t drive or walk in public unaccompanied by a chaperone — would be developed. It’s wealthy, but completely underdeveloped. Saudi Arabia would revert to the Stone Age today if its oil wealth ran out. That’s because the country has no human capital. You can’t lock one half of your population — women and girls — behind doors and be a modern state. I know Kenya isn’t Saudi Arabia, or a crazy theocracy, but stripping women naked in public is akin to stoning them in the village square.

Let’s turn facts on their head for a minute. Those stripping women naked claim to be offended by skimpy or scant clothing. Their argument — if one can so dignify it — is that revealing clothing offends public morality, cultural mores, or social values. Apparently, they believe that the state should legislate a dress code for women. In the absence such state action, these morons now purport to appoint themselves the “dress police.” But if they are truly offended by clothing that, in their view reveals too much flesh, how would tearing off the skimpy clothing to reveal even more flesh solve the problem? Aren’t they counter-intuitively acting contrary to their own argument? Perhaps the fools can’t see this blatant irony.

But let me get down to fundamentals. Virtually all societies have historically attempted to control women and women’s bodies.

The female gender has been viewed by patriarchy and the state as property. Not long ago, women were regarded as chattel. Chattel marriage, which is still common in many parts of the world, regards wives as the property of husbands. Proponents of these horrid views base them on culture and religion. There are many Kenyan men who believe that once married, a woman becomes the sole property of the husband. The husband can do whatever he pleases with his “property,” including marital rape, forced labour, and physical assaults. Such miserable men believe that women are naturally inferior to men.

Men have typically exercised control over women by seizing the reproductive rights of the latter. In many societies, women aren’t allowed to decide whether, when, or how often, to have children. All too often, women — and girls — have been turned into “baby factories.” You just need listen to Boko Haram and the fate of the Chibok girls to get my point. Turning women into reproductive machines has far reaching deleterious consequences for the status and girls in most societies. Too many women and girls exist in a state of un-freedom. They are locked into cruel traditional marriages, bonded, trafficked, or simply held as slaves. Many of these grim facts apply to Kenya today. We must say enough is enough.

I have been shocked by the government’s reaction to these savage attacks on women. It’s been lame and inexcusable. DP William Ruto asked that the perpetrators be arrested. Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo called on the victimised women to record a statement with the police.

Why are the victims and the perpetrators such a mystery? Didn’t videos of some of the assaults go viral? Seems to me the government should know who the culprits are and should’ve arrested them yesterday – pronto – instead of calling for their arrest.

These ugly incidents require immediate attention and action from the highest offices in the land, not idle talk. Treating them casually compounds the bigotry that women face. Senior male politicians must act.

These misogynistic acts are a window into Kenya’s soul. It’s a window that reveals a rotten truth — that our moral values are warped and hateful. Every man has a mother — or he wouldn’t have been born. Most men have sisters, wives, aunts, grandmothers, nieces, and other female relatives. Imagine — just imagine — if one of your female relatives was subjected to such unspeakable cruelty.

What would you do to the animal, the vile perpetrator responsible? I hope you’d strangle them with your bare hands.