From political statement to fashion accessory- the case of the manly beard

Mombasa Governor Ali Hassan Joho has always been a darling with women. Whether due to his looks, fashion sense, dancing prowess, wealth and aura of power, women gush over him. 

His beard, a signature part of his instantly recognizable look, is certainly a big part of the appeal, in an era when the beard maketh the man.

It is a recent fad, women going gaga over facial hair. And not just the bushy chin rebels sport but well-groomed, styled and manicured beards.

“I find men with clean-shaven faces a little creepy. A smooth look is a little too feminine for my taste. In my view, beards are manly, sexy, and badass,” says Megan Aleko, 26, a model.

“Pretty boys with baby faces are only good to look at, and I get the impression they spend most of the time in the bathroom mirror. I want a beard to scratch while laying on the couch watching TV or something.”

Her friend, Betty Nkatha, who is a student at a University on Thika road, nods in agreement.

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“Guys with beards seem more masculine and free-spirited. I’m not too fond of overly long beards, but there should be a sign of facial hair on your face, at least. There’s a reason God gave men facial hair, and we all know that the thicker the mane, the more formidable a lion tends to be. Right?” she says.

Some women beg to differ. Jessica Mutie, a 35-year-old teacher, thinks beards are an undesirable trait in men. 

“Beards are deceptive. They make many weak-chinned men appear masculine and useless men appear rugged. Ladies, anytime you feel drawn in by the mysterious look of a bearded man, don’t fall prey.

“He may look like he could scoop you up to a solid bed built with his own two hands, but perhaps therein lies the blandest and most spineless human being behind the facial curtain. Men who look good without beards should be proud of their looks. Their masculine features could lie in the determined look in their eyes, the strong nape of their neck, the assuredness in their stride, or the solidness of their legs,” says Jessica.

Beyond its deployment as a fashion accessory, the beard has always represented a certain manliness. It has always been the most conspicuous signal of the human male.

The driver being the male hormone, testosterone, the beard is supposed to announce to the world that they are dealing with a being who is richly endowed with the hormones that make a man a man.

Desmond Morris, the author of The Naked Man (2008) has remarked, “No other biological feature, apart from the genitals, would make him (a man) look more different from the adult female.”

Whatever else the beard may do, or not do, Morris argues, it signifies masculine adulthood. It is a male flag, with a strong visual impact. It says that you are mature, male, powerful, strong and virile. Away from material trappings of life, what more could you ask for?

On account of this, human males have tended to crown their sense of self-actualisation, in whatever field, by spotting a beard.

The beard as a political statement

In Kenya in the 1980s, the beard was treated with suspicion in political circles. President Moi was openly averse to bearded academics and politicians. And Attorney General, Charles Njonjo, was hostile to politicians he called the “bearded sisters.”

Njonjo borrowed from another one of Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth, where three witches are bearded. Back in the day, a bearded woman was feared. She was thought of as a bad omen and a bad woman, and possibly one who practised witchcraft. She was seen as morally decayed on the inside. Hence, the beard was the external symbol of the decay.

In branding dissenting politicians “the seven bearded sisters,” Njonjo alluded to the wicked witches in Shakespeare’s play. They were bad people, not to be trusted.

And so it was that somewhere in Kiambu, a district commissioner, Fred Mwango, was upset that a bearded high school teacher in the district had the temerity to attend his meeting and ordered the poor man to shave off the beard at once, as everyone else watched the drama.

A razorblade was presently found. The teacher was supervised to shave off his beard without the benefit of the shaving accessories of lotion, water, cream, or mirrors. He used saliva to wet the hair, and his fingers to feel the facial and hairy contours. Such were the times. Company executives picked up the cue. Staff were supposed to be smart. This meant, among other things, being clean-shaven. Not even a moustache.

Marxists, or university students?

University bosses, however, tried to enforce this without much success.

It was the era of a single university in the country, the University of Nairobi. Some academics flattered themselves with the thought that the beard was an outward mark of intellectual maturity. They walked in the footsteps of great thinkers like Karl Marx, literary virtuosos like Leo Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Shakespeare himself; and philosophers in the rank of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

In science, they wanted to look like Charles Darwin and Galileo Galilei. Great brains. Artists were trying to resemble the great Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. But there were also chaps who were just curious, imagining what it was like to be an explorer like Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, or Marco Polo, making forays of discovery; this time not across high seas and landscapes, but across  “bookscapes.” A healthy beard was the outward symbol. Even youth wanted to be macho, in the image of starry artistes like Teddy Pendergrass. 

The establishment would probably not mind, but the problem was this man Karl Marx. Some politicians, like nominated MPs, Kariuki Chotara, Mulu Mutisya and Ezekiel Barng’etuny, thought that Karl Marx was a teacher at the university.

They called him “Karlo Marko.” Others thought that Karlo Marko was a student; possibly a student leader. They wondered why he had caused so much trouble on campus, right from the Jomo Kenyatta years. Why could he not be expelled? Someone else understood that the students were asking for dialogue and remarked, “So why don’t they cook for them dialogue, if that is what they want to eat.” The chapati found its way onto the diet, as the dialogue.

Problems persisted. President Moi suggested that the communist ideology of Marx was the problem, not the dialogue. Anyone with a beard was a follower of Marx, a Marxist. Anyang Nyong’o, a teacher of political science, was the very embodiment of Marx. His beard was enough testimony. The university was instructed to change the name of the course from Political Science to Government Studies. They said calling it Political Science radicalised the students. It made them imbibe “foreign ideologies” and grow beards. The only ideology worth embracing, Mzee Moi said, was “Tumbo Ideology.”

But people like Ngugi wa Thiong’o rejected the Tumbo ideology, long before Moi became the president. For this, they were rounded up and detained without trial. Besides the beard, Ngugi, a literary maestro from his youth, was writing and staging Marxist plays in villages in Limuru.

The last straw was a play in Gikuyu, titled, Ngahika Ndeenda, which is to say “I will marry when I want.” It was gunpowder. When it was touched off, the blast rocked academia. And so you had a beard here, a beard there, a beard everywhere, everyone being “progressive,” and thinking big, and getting detained for doing so.

While the government of the day did not like beards, it was often reminded that Mzee Jomo Kenyatta himself had a beard. His vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, too, spotted a Cesarean beard. So, too, did Dr Munyua Waiyaki, in his heyday as the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

— Barrack Muluka, PhD [Politics & International Relations, Leicester, UK] is

Strategic Communications Advisor.