Here’s why we should all be feminists

To be born in a third-world country like Kenya is to be born into a never-ending battle with poverty. You wake up each day and face a new hurdle between you and dignity.

If persistent floods do not finish off our farms, locusts do the work. And as those two are ravaging the rural areas, police brutality is finishing off the cities' young men. Meanwhile, our government's corruption keeps on reaching new heights.

So it would be expected that we would all come together and agitate for our rights to be upheld. We ushered in a new Constitution with such high hopes; every Kenyan thought that finally, things would change for the better.

It is thus very unfortunate to see that despite all the progressive steps Kenya has taken, its view of women has remained the same if not gotten worse.

JUSTICE

This week Kenyan men took to social media to cheer a woman using unprintable words to insult other women. The men said she spoke for them, because “these feminists have become too headstrong”.

But I ask the same question Barack Obama and Thomas Sankara have asked at different times in history: How can a country progress while leaving behind half of its population?

How can a Kenyan's life mean anything to the state when the same men agitating for justice for DJ Evolve murder women when they reject their advances?

How can we say we want to stop police brutality when women are victims of men’s brutality daily?

If Governor Okoth Obado’s case is anything to go by, women's lives in this country are disposable and no one will do anything about it.

Every single day, countless women and children are raped by the same men supposed to protect them, and the government's judicial inefficiency helps ensure the cycle keeps repeating itself.

And while it's not always physical violence, there is the dehumanisation that comes with being a woman in Kenya, from being insulted for marrying rich men to being insulted for selling sex by the same men that buy sex.

The same men sire kids and abandon them then turn around and say very distasteful things about single mothers.

POVERTY

It is hypocritical of us to demand better from the government while treating women dishonourably. It is absurd to want to get out of poverty while not ensuring that all sisters and daughters inherit land as our laws say.

It is unfair to demonstrate against police brutality, but have nothing to say against domestic violence. While insecurity and robbery is a major issue, rape should be accorded the same respect and dealt with as well.

We have far too many troubles facing us as Kenyans; we do not have the luxury of weakening one group with even more challenges. We need each other if we are to slay the poverty dragon. We need each other if we are to vote out the robbers in government.

But all that will not happen, as long as one group is fighting for its humanity from the other one. Women deserve the same rights as men. It is only human. We should all be feminists.

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