Leeches and poison quills.

If only this defense wasn't based on absolute bias based on gender,if only we could use that eye that doesn't employ the use gender card whenever a colleague in gender is attacked,if only we could be fair then maybe we'd be liberal level headed and take note of faults by both njoki chege on one hand and her attackers on the others.But to sit in a darkroom in the middle of the night and take the view that this is entirely Male uncalled for attack is wrong especially taking into account the meanness and toxicity of her pen..oh and her insults to. Condemn the attack on her but with the same breath condemn her insults.They have no justifications ~ Joe Onkeo

I hate to admit it, but this made me roll on the floor laughing out loud. I had written that "the right of a woman to be incorrigibly disagreeable is unfettered." I haven't changed my mind.

This is the Information Age or the Digital Age, depending on what floats your boat, and in the online bazaar, gender is a highly fluid characteristic. Insulting posts on blogs, Twitter and Facebook are a dime-a-dozen, and only the thin-skinned will lose their rag over it. However, it is important to note that we may disagree with the content of a post, and we may demand penance from those we disagree with, but to ignore the double-standards at play when women engage in the same salacious innuendo as men is a great disservice to the concept of free speech.

I do not agree with Ms Chege's worldview and I don't care that she holds that view. She is not the only disagreeable writer. But to take special umbrage because she has taken potshots at youthful men of limited means who imbibe cheap liquor and drive cut-rate grey imports is to engage in a Sisyphean trial of immense proportion by attempting to elide our hypocrisy.

There are many men who have a very precise idea of what they imagine the perfect woman to be or what the perfect woman should wear, and some of them say it with an eloquence I can only envy. But it does not occur to them that the days of men determining what a woman can be and what she can do have gone the way of the mighty moa. Whether a woman wants to leech off a wealthy man or whether she wants an independent existence where she runs her own enterprise and chooses her own lovers is no longer something men can do anything about. If there is a crisis arising out of the pro-girl-child movement, it is that many, many men have lost their confidence because they can no longer rely on their patrimony to control women.

So what if she is mean and toxic? Given half a decent chance she might yet grow into a brilliant writer, her satire may become more nuanced and experience may temper her poison quill and, hopefully, imbue her with humility and wisdom. Hers will not be a lone voice. That field is being plowed by dozens of men and women. It is time to either turn the page or switch off the light. Either way, it's got nothing to do with the price of beans.