"Your mother" and the Two-thirds Gender Rule

Mutahi Ngunyi tweeted "The Luo Nation MUST liberate itself from the BONDAGE and poverty-producing SPELL of Odingaism. PERIOD. Is there a MOSES amongst the Luo?" The Star reported that Gladys Wanga responded with "'Poverty stricken' Luos do not belong to your mother." Are you still confused about why the Two-thirds Gender Rule is yet to take effect in Parliament? I'm not.

Article 27(6) states, "To give full effect to the realisation of the rights guaranteed under this Article, the State shall take legislative and other measures, including affirmative action programmes and policies designed to redress any disadvantage suffered by individuals or groups because of past discrimination." 

Article 27(8) continues, "In addition to the measures contemplated in clause (6), the State shall take legislative and other measures to implement the principle that not more than two-thirds of the members of elective or appointive bodies shall be of the same gender." This is the Two-thirds Gender Rule.

The Rule is restated in Article 81(b) on the general principles of the electoral system thus, "not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender."

Paragraph 79 of the Advisory Opinion of the Supreme Court in the Gender-Rule Application in 2014 states, "Bearing in mind the terms of Article 100 [on promotion of representation of marginalised groups] and of the Fifth Schedule [prescribing time-frames for the enactment of required legislation], we are of the majority opinion that legislative measures for giving effect to the one-third-to-two-thirds gender principle, under Article 81(b) of the Constitution and in relation to the National Assembly and Senate, should be taken by  27 August, 2015."

When Aden Duale insulted the then leader of the Pesa Mashinani movement, Isaac Ruto, with the epithet, "Hii pesa si ya mamako," no amount of explaining or walking back the statement could hide the fact that it was an incredibly misogynistic statement to be uttered by the Leader of the Majority Party in the National Assembly. Many argued that it reinforced the fact that male parliamentarians were not ready to see their female colleagues as equals. Patriarchy, they argued, had proven resilient in the face of the constitutional guarantees of equality. They hoped that female parliamentarians would lead from the front, and make strong statements against the casual misogyny represented by the Majority Leader. In Ms Wanga, it seems, they might be barking up the wrong tree.

Ms Wanga reminds us of the casual misogyny that prevails in Kenya. The worst insult, it seems, is that something is really badly wrong if it is done by one's mother. Mr Ngunyi is wrong about "poverty stricken Luos" because "they do not belong to his mother." If this statement was made by a man, we would have carried on in the belief that it is men who are solely responsible for the casual misogyny and the slow pace of implementing the Two-thirds Gender Rule. But Ms Wanga disabuses us of this notion; she not only participates in that misogyny, she sees nothing amiss in hurling such a dangerous epithet.

Some of us have been fortunate; even though our fathers came from a generation that was casually misogynistic, many of them escaped that cultural trap. Though gendered roles defined their relationships with their mothers, their wives and their daughters, many of them celebrated the small steps of gender liberation taken by their female relatives, if not their mothers, but most certainly their wives and their daughters. It is in my father's generation that many women became leaders in their fields, taking on roles that had traditionally been reserved for men, such as Wangari Maathai becoming the first woman university professor, Grace Onyango becoming Kenya's firs elected woman Member of Parliament, and so on.

But Ms Wanga still lives in a world where if someone does something wrong, the wrongness of the thing done can only be demonstrated if it could be done by someone's mother. This goes beyond the casual misogyny of "You mama" jokes so beloved of the United States teenager. It reminds young boys and girls that no matter how high a woman might rise in society, how good a life a probity she might lead, how pure of spirit she might be, a woman is always less than a man, and that a mother is the one person who can do the worst thing. I do not see Ms Wanga leading a fullthroated fight to realise the Two-thirds Gender Rule. She does not see herself as an equal of her male colleagues.