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Nairobi Women and their anger issues

Living

Mid last month, on Koinange Street, there was a minor accident that caused such a scene, it attracted hundreds of people who watched a woman rain insults on the poor man who had knocked her from behind. It was a very minor scratch, but the offended woman was implacable.

 She wasn’t drunk, being a quiet mid-week afternoon.  She didn’t seem like she is someone on drugs. She looked like your decent, middle-aged next-door neighbour. Most men observed with detached shame at the poor man at the receiving end of the torrent of insults from the woman who spoke with a Coastal accent.

 Every other day, I see a woman losing her head at the slightest provocation. Recently in a club, a young man invited himself to dance behind a woman in some upmarket club.  He was slapped like a mburukenge and before he could comprehend what was happening, she kicked his groin, he fell over, almost hurting his head.  I was watching, the young man hadn’t done anything unbecoming, he had just approached her.

In October, I sat with a very senior, and elderly politician. I’m not sure what must have angered his wife, but man, she was furious, quarrelling the man in my presence, it got so embarrassing, I had to excuse myself and leave without being paid for some job I had done.  

  have seen a woman slap her man in an upscale restaurant and the man did nothing. Nowadays there is no woman who can give you a pass in traffic, she will not only block you, but will do so with a certain contemptuous rudeness that is hard to fathom. I know a troop of Kenyan women on Twitter who you don’t want to cross their line, because they will make you feel like poop, just because you have an alternative view of life.

Women are angry everywhere. Nowadays, younger women can sack their house help on a whim, even on the slightest mistake. No generation has a higher turnover of house helps like the young women of today. Most of the time, it is their attitude, not necessarily the house girl’s erring ways. We will revisit how house helps are treated in our households.

More and more married men, especially in households where the wife earns more or she is the outright breadwinners are telling me the kind of terror they are going through, and it breaks your heart. To be a man, lately is a walking occupational hazard.

I asked my female friends why there is so much negative energy amongst them, and the answers were interesting and at times predictable. The first one pointed her finger towards me, and said, “it is men.”

 How?

“Women are struggling with so much, children, school, family and men are not supportive, so we carry with us so many frustrations…”

She made sense. There are men who have abdicated their duties rather badly. And women shoulder that responsibility rather stoically. More men have become lazy, and for some, they are just down on luck, and men don’t have the kind of networks that women sometimes have to pull through in murkier times of life. I can say, this is justifiable anger on the part of women. And I urge men to try and shoulder the burdens in their household.

 But there is another strain of anger that that has totally eluded me. Asking people who know these things, an anthropologist blamed sexual repression. There is so much pent up sexual energy that is not finding a good let out, because the number of potential sexual partners is diminishing every year. And women who choose career and education always get to their 30s without potential mates. Seeing their peers who chose marriage and happily married raising family can antagonize them and question their past moves.

 When I ran this argument by a feminist friend, she called it stupid, pedestrian and asked if the anthropologist can be sacked from where he teaches.

 But there are no awards for guessing that part of the frustration and anger revolves around relationships. Investing in men who can’t reciprocate. Dealing with cheats or lazy men drives them through the wall.  But also, having unrealistic expectations in life has affected men women who learn too late in life that their fantasy expectations could never reconcile with reality.

 For me, I will still clear not just women, but even men. Everyone is just too angry, and you can easily be knifed or shot for no reason whatsoever.

 

@nyanchwani

[email protected]

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