MPs should do the noble thing and pass gender law

We often speak of ourselves in imagery of motherhood. We see our nationhood through feminine prisms, such as “Kenya our motherland.” Elsewhere our poets have taught us to think in terms of “Mother Africa.” At the best of times, we are fecund with celebratory thoughts of the trope of motherhood. Uganda’s Chris J C Wasike is the author of a brilliant essay titled “Feminisation of the Ugandan nation in John Ruganda’s The Floods, The Burdens and Black Mamba.”

Wasike’s striking essay attempts to understand his country through the female characters in the plays of one of East Africa’s most successful playwrights. He demonstrates how — through the voices of Ruganda’s female characters, their bodies and sexuality — we can come to grips with “the complexities, contradictions and constructions of the Ugandan nation, especially during Idi Amin’s dictatorship.” Wasike observes, “The trope of mother Africa is equally fluid and problematic.” He recalls that the motherly image of our continent was floated by poets like Senegal’s late founding President, Leopold Senghor. Yet men have not always been honest in usage of this image. Wasike reminds us of Florence Stratton’s argument that men usually use this metaphor to draw bipolar gendered distinctions. Is this symbol “conventionally patriarchal”? Does it work against the interests of women seeking — both implicitly and explicitly — to exclude and exploit them?