Gender imbalance is a fallacy

Quote: Women rights are human rights? Hillary Clinton, Beijing 1995

The 2016 Women Deliver conference is underway in Copenhagen Denmark. The conference seeks to close the gender gap.

Societies worldwide are admitting that women are still grotesquely underrepresented at the table of ideas and that something needs to be done about it.

When I speak to some of my brothers and sisters here at home, they tell me that I’m fishing a dead letter.

Gender imbalance, according to them is a fallacy. “We all go to the same schools and work in the same places, why are you perpetually complaining?” They ask.

This begs the question, who among us is either of these three things; delusional or downright ignorant or both? 

Kenyans joined the rest of the world in marking Mother’s Day the other day. Social media was awash with pomp and flair with beautiful messages celebrating wives, mothers, daughters, godmothers, girlfriends etcetera.

Entrepreneurs weren’t left behind. They sought to capitalize on that day by presenting an array of advantages for these women leaving their customers spoilt for choice.

Where do you take your mother or your wife to? To the spa or to the shopping mall? To Mombasa or to Egypt?

Women were lavished for their strength and love and determination by many people, especially by the men in their lives. Women of this nation are really loved, or are they?

This year’s Mothers’ Day came in the wake of a flopped gender bill in our National Assembly.

Twice. A bill that was supposed to have been passed last year August, but it wasn’t. This is because opinion leaders and the media widely publicized it as a ticket to giving women free things who apparently, are overwhelmingly privileged in this country.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The purpose of that bill was to see to it that the two thirds gender representation as enshrined in our constitution is initiated, upheld systematically to the point of absolute equity.

We sweepingly voted for a new constitution in 2010 knowing well that it stipulated so. How it gets to be a dangled carrot for political gain in 2016 is beyond me.

The whole point of two thirds representation is this: at any one point, there should never be more than two thirds of a particular gender in public office.

Considering the male gender has predominantly taken the lion’s share of the slots since 1963 (think Uhuruto’s Cabinet), its purpose was to protect women from systemic under-representation.

Men have sometimes occupied one hundred percent of those slots (think council of governors). When someone is not on the table of ideas, his or her needs don’t matter.

It is out of sight out of mind, literally. But that’s not all. If we’d ever get to a point where women outnumber men, then men would be protected as well.

Gender is a very difficult conversation to have anywhere in the world, and to bring up gender matters is to expose oneself to the most violent antagonism.

When we women clamor for fair representation, most of the time we’ll be accused of anything from waxing whiny, to playing the woman card, to trampling on the rights of the boy child who, as it stands, is far endangered than the white rhino.

When that’s done, we’ll be presented with around the clock lectures quoting cultural and sectarian dogma of how “things have always been done”.

Corruption, class segregation, religious profiling, stolen elections, tribal marginalization all deserve our exigent attention. Not gender. 

Privately, I’m not spared. Matters women in particular and gender in general are way too trivial for my boyfriend and I to discuss.

He wonders why I root for women leaders when they’ve done little to “change my life”. When I ask him what their male counterparts have done for him since independence, I’m met with blank stares. Women must deliver instant results; men can take all the time in the world. 

On Mothers’ Day everyone applauds women for being savvy and caring and for holding half the world with/in (pick your conjunction) their hands.

Women are praised for their love. For one full day. Apparently this “smartness” and “love” does not translate to deserving a seat at the table of ideas permanently.

Women’s smartness is still a derivative of men’s, because heaven knows, women simply can’t be smart enough. Science is on my side. You can’t pick a brain and say, this is a girl’s brain. But here, tell it to the birds.

To many, these mothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives aren’t good enough to contribute ideas that can propel this nation forward. Or the world, for that matter.

But the worst, and probably the most ridiculous argument against absolute gender representation is this: if women want numbers in elective politics, why don’t they vote for their fellow women?

Again, a misguided assumption that closing the gap is only beneficial to women or can only be done by women.

Women don’t exist in isolation. They live in a society with their husbands and fathers and sons who shape their opinions, however nonsensical at times.

But that’s beside the point. It is not the work of women alone to close the gender gap, the same way patriarchy isn’t peddled by men alone. To answer this, I’ll take you on a brief trip to the dynamics at play.

In Kenyan work places, women earn far less than their male counterparts. According to a report released by the World Economic Forum in November 2015, a Kenyan woman is paid Sh62 for every Sh100 that a Kenyan man earns. Same credentials, different pay. Do women get 38% discount for groceries, fuel, rent, fare and property?

Moreover, women are less likely to be inheritors of their families’ wealth. In this country where personal wealth overrides any brilliant idea, especially in elective politics, you already get it don’t you? I mean you understand where I’m taking us with this, or rather, where money is taking us with this, right?

I mean being male = money = political power = ultimate power. The playing field isn’t fair.

Even for women who break free, it’s still a zero-four-hundred hours July climb up Mount Kenya in only a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and slip-ons.

Political party machinery is an exclusive rich boys club. Say, this woman successfully navigates this and hits the campaign trail. There she’ll face inconceivable violence and intimidation; from glaring sexual objectification, to the risk of rape, to physical attacks (think Kidero-Shebesh). And that’s not all. She gets to parliament and it’s a battle of testosterones and “manalogues”.

Lobbying and passing bills is suddenly dependent on deep pockets and tyranny of numbers which most of these women don’t have.

Then come her constituents who want to see tangible results in financial terms; women representatives don’t have a constituency fund to draw from like MPs and governors! But we still yell, what has she done for the last three years? I mean, let’s keep things in perspective. The Second Coming could find us barely halfway.

And I’ve not even touched the plight of the millions of girls subjected to FGM and early marriages under the watch of their fathers, husbands, brothers, clergy, chiefs…I’ve not mentioned the refugees and war victims; a majority being women. Are we still denying the gender gap?

Are we still denying that women’s successes, decisions, health and reproductive choices, sexual choices, looks, attitudes, feelings are still largely dictated by men? Are we really that blind?

And on Mothers’ Day, women must wear a bold smiling face for all the blessings accorded to them because heaven knows, they could get far less.

They’ve been favored by men who’ve sliced for them a tiny slice from the pie of privilege. Things could be worse. No. I have news for you. Things are bad. Really bad.

The Copenhagen conference is underway, are we paying attention? Or are we still in denial? Again, who among us is delusional or downright ignorant or both delusional and ignorant?

 

The author is a Scientist and a Novelist

I invite you to write to me at [email protected]

Follow on Twitter: @Catherine_amayi