Kenyan Men Should Zip Up and Grow Up

[Guest guest]

Kenyan Men Should Zip Up and Grow Up

by Wandia Njoya in African Affairs

When the G10, a group of Kenyan women leaders from civil society, yesterday

called on womenfolk to abstain from sex with their husbands for 7 days as a fast

to force the bickering Kenyan leaders to act like they have some sense, I

dismissed it as a poor reenactment of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata. I

thought the call was inappropriate and irrelevant, and even dreamed that Kenyans

would ignore it or joke about it. I was in for a surprise.

This morning, several Kenyan men called the radio station talk show I was

listening to to express their anger. Some gave weak lines like their wives are

not married to them, not to those known as the " two principals, " namely Prime

Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki. Like the wives don't already

know that. But others boldly voiced their disrespect and outright hatred for

women, with one man boldly saying that " if my wife refused to sleep with me, she

would see [a euphemism for `I would thoroughly beat her up']. " Another man

boldly declared on television that he would flog his wife.

The comments were shocking. The first reason is the most obvious - it is

unlikely that Kenyan men have sex every night of their married lives. I am sure

that some of those men now proclaiming their conjugal " rights " go for weeks, if

not months, without having intercourse with their wives. Others fast for 28 days

or more from sex for religious reasons. And now they will have us believe that

their marriages will collapse and that they will die because their spouses have

said no sex? Please.

In addition, it seems strange in this day and age, when the world is moving

towards equity and mutual respect in relations across continents, that some

Kenyan men would be boldly exposing their view of sex as an assertion of

dominance rather than as an opportunity of mutual emotional and physical

exchange between a woman and a man. After all, what does a man have to lose when

he has a edifying relationship with a woman? If anything, a man whose spouse

relates to him out of respect and love would be more of a man than some slave

master whose spouse relates to him out of fear and lack of options. The latter

man always lives in the risk of his wife deserting him or worse, of poisoning

him - and yes, it does happen in Africa.

It is surely sickening to hear a man vow to flog another adult. It raises the

question as to why a man should marry and mate an adult for whom he has so much

contempt. One may, of course, argue that the man does not see the woman as an

adult, or even a human being. But such being the case, he is no better than the

Southern plantation slave master who, during the day, would argue that the black

slave is an animal, incapable of human thought or emotion, only to rape that

same animal in the night and bear offspring by that animal a few months later.

If we frown upon sexual intercourse between human and other animal species as a

sign of sickness and an abomination, then a man who marries " something " he

considers lower than human is sick, abominable and outright evil.

The argument that most Kenyan women are not married to Raila and Kibaki doesn't

hold because men seem to have forgotten as much in January and February 2008

when they raped women and children who belonged to the ethnic groups perceived

to be on the opposing political side. Other men who felt demeaned by fleeing

from ethnic violence are quoted in a report done by the group Men for the

Equality of Men and Women as saying that they raped their fellow escapees

because " As men running away to avoid getting killed by other men, the only

masculine way of testing their manhood was by gang-raping women escapees in

broad day light without minding whether they were our former neighbors or

strangers. " Why didn't the men remember that those women were not Raila's and

Kibaki's wives then? Give us a break.

So what is the real issue here? It is not sex - since men do not have sex every

day. Neither is it about concern for politics interfering in marriage. It is

about power. The men who are angry with the G10 are angry that women are

asserting their right to choose what to do with their bodies and with their

destinies. It does not anger them when a woman doesn't sleep with a man; it

angers them when she has made the choice not to do so.

The irony is that this model of power relations that the men want to impose at

home is the same one being played on the national stage and which men complain

about. Just like the men callers with regards to the women, the Kenyan leaders

have no respect for the wananchi of Kenya. They rape us the citizens, destroy

our environment, our public coffers, our food reserves, our dignity and our

intellect, leaving millions of Kenyans killing each other or dying from hunger.

But instead of men who oppose the G10 offering an alternative model of manhood

and of leadership in Kenya, they are now asserting the right to behave like

Raila and Kibaki within their compounds and in their bedrooms. How pathetic.

The other issue is that the manhood of Kenyan men has reduced to their penises,

and the same has been done to politics in Kenya. From debates about

circumcision vs. no circumcision to distinguish between the ethnic groups of the

major Kenyan politicians, to the insane orgies of violence visited on women

during the chaos in Kenya in 2008, the focus on what makes a man is the

engagement of his sexual organ. How savage. And some of these men will be

complaining on international platforms about how racism stereotyped the black

man as over-sexual and prone to raping [white women]. In the same way,

politicians have reduced Kenya to such narrow-minded power games that now two

men - Raila and Kibaki - have decided to sacrifice our country as they engage in

ego-trips and daring each other to see who will be the first to blink.

But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. Kenyan men celebrated as one of their son

Barack Obama, who was not raised by his Kenyan father. And the irony gets

better. Obama happens to have a successful wife, a Princeton graduate - I might

add for those men who think that educating women is a waste of resources and

that an educated wife is sheer trouble. And even as president of the most

powerful country in the world, he takes his daughters to school, advises Black

men to uphold their responsibilities and fathers, and horror of horrors for the

career flogging husbands, he pulls out a chair for his wife! Should and when the

Obama's visit Africa, I hope that at the top of their agenda is to show how

equitable gender relations is good for all of us and for our children and that

it's not just about women. In fact, the laudable Kenyan men spearheading the

campaign to convince fellow men of the humanising benefit of seeing their

sisters, mothers, daughters and wives as fellow human beings should consider the

possibility of having Obama as their patron. Wouldn't that be great?

In the meantime, it is important to remember that God made the man with brains

and a conscience to think, hands to work for his family, and nation, emotions to

love his spouse and family and a soul to worship his creator. However, some

Kenyan men have not used the different dimensions of their being to make a build

a more humane Kenya. In 2007 and 2008, they tied their humanity and the identity

of Kenya to a single male organ. Since then, many work to enrich themselves;

they love themselves and disdain the natural and the sacred.

The G10 have brilliantly proved how pathetic the dominant model of Kenyan

masculinity is. For almost two years, women have been trying to get the audience

of the country in highlighting the suffering of women and children through

petitions, demonstrations and other traditional means, but the only time they

have captured the headlines and national attention is when they talk about sex.

Shame on Kenyan men, on Kenyan politicians and on the Kenyan press.

The women leaders have a touched a soft spot, and in so doing, they have

revealed what is ailing Kenya. A flawed masculinity that has corroded our

humanity, corrupted our sense of national identity and that threatens to destroy

our country. It is high time that Kenyan men zipped up and grew up by employing

their brains and muscles to make Kenya a peaceful, prosperous country. And those

men who believe they are nothing like the men callers to the radio station

should talk some sense into their brothers.

Any male species in the animal kingdom can mate and sire offspring. But it takes

a man to build a society. True manhood lies beyond the belt and engages every

extremity of the male human being. Mere male-ness confines itself to a small

triangular area below.

[Guest guest]

Kenyan Men Should Zip Up and Grow Up

by Wandia Njoya in African Affairs

When the G10, a group of Kenyan women leaders from civil society, yesterday

called on womenfolk to abstain from sex with their husbands for 7 days as a fast

to force the bickering Kenyan leaders to act like they have some sense, I

dismissed it as a poor reenactment of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata. I

thought the call was inappropriate and irrelevant, and even dreamed that Kenyans

would ignore it or joke about it. I was in for a surprise.

This morning, several Kenyan men called the radio station talk show I was

listening to to express their anger. Some gave weak lines like their wives are

not married to them, not to those known as the " two principals, " namely Prime

Minister Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki. Like the wives don't already

know that. But others boldly voiced their disrespect and outright hatred for

women, with one man boldly saying that " if my wife refused to sleep with me, she

would see [a euphemism for `I would thoroughly beat her up']. " Another man

boldly declared on television that he would flog his wife.

The comments were shocking. The first reason is the most obvious - it is

unlikely that Kenyan men have sex every night of their married lives. I am sure

that some of those men now proclaiming their conjugal " rights " go for weeks, if

not months, without having intercourse with their wives. Others fast for 28 days

or more from sex for religious reasons. And now they will have us believe that

their marriages will collapse and that they will die because their spouses have

said no sex? Please.

In addition, it seems strange in this day and age, when the world is moving

towards equity and mutual respect in relations across continents, that some

Kenyan men would be boldly exposing their view of sex as an assertion of

dominance rather than as an opportunity of mutual emotional and physical

exchange between a woman and a man. After all, what does a man have to lose when

he has a edifying relationship with a woman? If anything, a man whose spouse

relates to him out of respect and love would be more of a man than some slave

master whose spouse relates to him out of fear and lack of options. The latter

man always lives in the risk of his wife deserting him or worse, of poisoning

him - and yes, it does happen in Africa.

It is surely sickening to hear a man vow to flog another adult. It raises the

question as to why a man should marry and mate an adult for whom he has so much

contempt. One may, of course, argue that the man does not see the woman as an

adult, or even a human being. But such being the case, he is no better than the

Southern plantation slave master who, during the day, would argue that the black

slave is an animal, incapable of human thought or emotion, only to rape that

same animal in the night and bear offspring by that animal a few months later.

If we frown upon sexual intercourse between human and other animal species as a

sign of sickness and an abomination, then a man who marries " something " he

considers lower than human is sick, abominable and outright evil.

The argument that most Kenyan women are not married to Raila and Kibaki doesn't

hold because men seem to have forgotten as much in January and February 2008

when they raped women and children who belonged to the ethnic groups perceived

to be on the opposing political side. Other men who felt demeaned by fleeing

from ethnic violence are quoted in a report done by the group Men for the

Equality of Men and Women as saying that they raped their fellow escapees

because " As men running away to avoid getting killed by other men, the only

masculine way of testing their manhood was by gang-raping women escapees in

broad day light without minding whether they were our former neighbors or

strangers. " Why didn't the men remember that those women were not Raila's and

Kibaki's wives then? Give us a break.

So what is the real issue here? It is not sex - since men do not have sex every

day. Neither is it about concern for politics interfering in marriage. It is

about power. The men who are angry with the G10 are angry that women are

asserting their right to choose what to do with their bodies and with their

destinies. It does not anger them when a woman doesn't sleep with a man; it

angers them when she has made the choice not to do so.

The irony is that this model of power relations that the men want to impose at

home is the same one being played on the national stage and which men complain

about. Just like the men callers with regards to the women, the Kenyan leaders

have no respect for the wananchi of Kenya. They rape us the citizens, destroy

our environment, our public coffers, our food reserves, our dignity and our

intellect, leaving millions of Kenyans killing each other or dying from hunger.

But instead of men who oppose the G10 offering an alternative model of manhood

and of leadership in Kenya, they are now asserting the right to behave like

Raila and Kibaki within their compounds and in their bedrooms. How pathetic.

The other issue is that the manhood of Kenyan men has reduced to their penises,

and the same has been done to politics in Kenya. From debates about

circumcision vs. no circumcision to distinguish between the ethnic groups of the

major Kenyan politicians, to the insane orgies of violence visited on women

during the chaos in Kenya in 2008, the focus on what makes a man is the

engagement of his sexual organ. How savage. And some of these men will be

complaining on international platforms about how racism stereotyped the black

man as over-sexual and prone to raping [white women]. In the same way,

politicians have reduced Kenya to such narrow-minded power games that now two

men - Raila and Kibaki - have decided to sacrifice our country as they engage in

ego-trips and daring each other to see who will be the first to blink.

But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. Kenyan men celebrated as one of their son

Barack Obama, who was not raised by his Kenyan father. And the irony gets

better. Obama happens to have a successful wife, a Princeton graduate - I might

add for those men who think that educating women is a waste of resources and

that an educated wife is sheer trouble. And even as president of the most

powerful country in the world, he takes his daughters to school, advises Black

men to uphold their responsibilities and fathers, and horror of horrors for the

career flogging husbands, he pulls out a chair for his wife! Should and when the

Obama's visit Africa, I hope that at the top of their agenda is to show how

equitable gender relations is good for all of us and for our children and that

it's not just about women. In fact, the laudable Kenyan men spearheading the

campaign to convince fellow men of the humanising benefit of seeing their

sisters, mothers, daughters and wives as fellow human beings should consider the

possibility of having Obama as their patron. Wouldn't that be great?

In the meantime, it is important to remember that God made the man with brains

and a conscience to think, hands to work for his family, and nation, emotions to

love his spouse and family and a soul to worship his creator. However, some

Kenyan men have not used the different dimensions of their being to make a build

a more humane Kenya. In 2007 and 2008, they tied their humanity and the identity

of Kenya to a single male organ. Since then, many work to enrich themselves;

they love themselves and disdain the natural and the sacred.

The G10 have brilliantly proved how pathetic the dominant model of Kenyan

masculinity is. For almost two years, women have been trying to get the audience

of the country in highlighting the suffering of women and children through

petitions, demonstrations and other traditional means, but the only time they

have captured the headlines and national attention is when they talk about sex.

Shame on Kenyan men, on Kenyan politicians and on the Kenyan press.

The women leaders have a touched a soft spot, and in so doing, they have

revealed what is ailing Kenya. A flawed masculinity that has corroded our

humanity, corrupted our sense of national identity and that threatens to destroy

our country. It is high time that Kenyan men zipped up and grew up by employing

their brains and muscles to make Kenya a peaceful, prosperous country. And those

men who believe they are nothing like the men callers to the radio station

should talk some sense into their brothers.

Any male species in the animal kingdom can mate and sire offspring. But it takes

a man to build a society. True manhood lies beyond the belt and engages every

extremity of the male human being. Mere male-ness confines itself to a small

triangular area below.