Of feminists, menemies and frustrated wives

Some Tuesday afternoon, I was torn between going for Prof Micere Mugo’s talk ‘The Gender Campaign in Kenya’ or for the movie ‘Tomorrow Land’ for which I owed a film review.

 As always when confronted by two choices of this kind, I decided to toss a coin and let the gods of spins decide - Heads, Gender talk; Tails, Tomorrow Land.

It had been 20 years since the women went to Beijing to join the agitation for gender equality in Kenya. We are a long way from the days of wakina Nyiva Mwendwa being ‘watu wanaletha porocho kuthoka Peijing.’

FGM, under-age marriages, girl-child illiteracy and even jiggers, have been greatly reduced, due to our great gender champions.

Girls have even overtaken the lads in school registration, and are the majority in Masters’ programmes, not just in Kenya, but also globally. But for the last five, seven or even ten years, too many of the gender campaigners have gradually lost their way.

Once described by an angry Cabinet minister as ‘barren and bitter divorcees’, that statement has become a truism in some cases. While our First Lady is gaining popularity as the First Feminist with her ‘Beyond Zero’ campaign, we also have rogue feminists on the loose, trampling on the law.

 They have totally abandoned slum women and the like, and have resorted to publicity stunts targeting high profile men.

There was the case two years back of the Senator’s wife where some gender campaigners rushed in with TV crew to stop her ‘eviction’. Never mind Property Rights 101. And the other case where the same lot incited a certain first wife of a governor to run off to the Land Down Under with their children.

 Once the camera lights go off, these gender campaigners also take off, leaving ‘couples’ who were amicable before in a state of antagonism, but what do they care? They have footage of their ‘gender campaigns’ for gullible ‘mzungus’ looking to save girls everywhere, from Guan to Guatemala.

I can speak with authority on these type of feminists, myself having been subjected to a weird witch-hunt in the last quarter of last year - a matter I’ll not comment on further as I’ve sought redress in court - but I can safely legally say I found it very strange that many of these NGOs just sign off on false statements without even a call to the other party for comment or verification.

 They not only disregard the laws of men, such as ‘no one can be condemned, unheard’ but also the Law of God - look up the Ninth Commandment.

To wax in an Orwellian way: Men are many and they are the Enemy! Man is MY enemy. In the end, they do not see men, they see ‘menemies’ and become our nemeses. There is one who was even taken to court some time back for allegedly assaulting her father over land.

If I educated my little girl Checheslavia to college level then she beat me up over our land, I would skip the ‘curse’ bit and literally die broken hearted. My dream for my daughter is she becomes an architect and author, but Plan B a banker like her late grandmother. Plan C to E can even be criminal lawyer, dentist, or even entomologist - those are people who pick up after thugs, teeth and insects, respectively. But plan F,G, ‘ati’ Female Gender campaigner? Never.

PS: My pal Papa Ahmed reckons that those men in Nyeri who are being ‘nyafoliwad nyeti’ (castrated) by their frustrated wives deserve it because they come home too drunk, without even a piece of meat, and can never ever get it up because of the dysfunctional booze, so they may as well lose that ‘extra baggage.’