Why aspiring female presidents must have 'rooms' of their own

Azimio la Umoja Deputy Presidential candidate Martha Karua when she addressed the Jubilee Party National Delegates Convention in Nairobi's Ngong Racecourse on May 22, 2023. [Samson Wire, Standard]

English author Virginia Woolf argued in her 1929 book-length essay titled 'A Room of One's Own' that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to succeed in writing fiction.

During her time, fiction was a dominant mode through which elites could express and expose themselves to society-it had the influence that mass media and the internet have today. If Woolf were to write today about politics and gender, she would argue that women need financial independence and a private space to succeed in politics. Let us explore some background so that I can offer advice to any woman who aspires to be the first president of the Republic of Kenya.