of feminism

If you would have asked me a year ago if I was a feminist I would have probable said NO. It hadn’t crossed my mind what I believe in and feel very passionate about is actually a thing. If felt great knowing I wasn’t the only one fighting this in my own small world.

I really wasn’t planning to write about this. But I cant just keep quiet. We have seen women being stripped naked because of the clothes they are wearing. It honestly doesn’t make the situation better. If she was so badly dressed and it really bothered you why not cover her up? This is a violent act and it’s so offensive I haven’t brought myself to watching the videos. I am afraid I might weep or just raise my blood pressure.

I am a feminist. My boyfriend is worried he might see me on the news protesting something but I know he only worries for my safety. I grew up with two brothers. Life for me as a kid wasn’t defined as “girl and boy do different things”. That only started as I grew closer to that age where boobs start to pop out. I wasn’t for it….the change in behavior. I wanted to do the same things by brother would. I had the capacity to anyway. climb trees, race, get dirty…but it wasn’t what girls did.

I picked a career that excited me. A career where 80% or more of my colleagues have been men. I love technology. And I have had to fight to be looked at as a colleague and not a woman. Now we fight over discrimination and violence. When did this get to violence? Sometimes I wish men would be women for a day. See how we are teased, looked at like objects, how most of us were sexually abused growing up, sexually harassed at work….just because we are women.

I want a world where we do not discriminate. Everyone should be given an equal opportunity. Men are great cooks, women are great leaders…either one can do another. It starts with us. I cannot wait to be a mother and teach my children what I only learnt the hard way.

Let us protect our women, stop violence against women.

Why African ‘traditionalists’ should be the loudest supporters of feminism (including #mydressmychoice)

I don’t know how else I would have said this.

Wairimualiyepotea

If you listen to discussions in the public space for and against all the the poor women who have been stripped, humiliated and molested in Kenya’s public spaces, you will see a strong and predictable thread that blames ‘modernization’ for society’s ills. This basically means that tv and media have transformed our women from the submissive angels they were into scantily dressed part-time prostitutes who’s sole mission in life is to confuse men by tapping into their wild and untamed sexual desires. These women are asking for it, and the problem is modernization.

Except it is not.

When we talk about traditional African values, we fall into this little happy place where we can fantasize about what it meant to be African. For the loudest and most ignorant, it simply means a society where women were passive, subjugated and at the mercy of their men. It was a world where…

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