Erik
Killmonger in Black Panther is arguably *the* most nuanced, incandescent
antagonist/ super villain in the comic world– perhaps only rivalled by Heath
Ledger’s Joker. To a child of a (former) colonial state, I identified and
understood his struggle. I got Erik. I was rooting for him! But in the end, I
was totally disappointed by just how badly women fared at his hands.
If
we use Black Panther as an allegory of women’s role in Kenyan social justice
movements, the disposability of women in Erik’s quest (death of his female
partner, the choking of the heart shaped herb guardian), are disappointingly
familiar. Contrast this with T'Challa's Wakanda where women are
integral and vital. It was so refreshing to see women taking crucial and
non-supporting roles. In Wakanda- women were core to the struggle. Generals,
tech geniuses, spies, rulers. They served and they saved.
And
looking inwards at our non-fictional nation of Kenya, it should serve as a
cautionary tale to all the social justice movements that purport to be working
for the greater good of society. Where are the women in your ranks? How are
they being treated? Are we sanctioning- and casting out misogynists? Are we
actively working to counter anti-female rhetoric and misogyny in the rank and
file of the organisation?
If
not, the movement is at its heart an unjust movement. And unjust movements
bring forth unjust outcomes where they simply populate the same unjust
structures with new faces.
Where citizenship can be defined as the process of exercising
rights and protections; and the expectation that specific obligations (by state
or other parties) shall be fulfilled, it’s obvious that in Kenya, not all
citizens are created equal. Despite the recent hue and cry over the “plight of
the boy child”, it’s clear to even the most cursory observer, that women and
girls constantly get the short end of the citizenship stick. National data on
school attendance, political leadership, corporate leadership etc. all attest
to the fact that it’s still easier for the man/boy to make his way in Kenya
than for his female counterpart.
We see this differential quality of citizenship every day
where e.g. assault of a male is seen as deserving a response by the authorities
towards the perpetrator, but an assault of the female first requires a
discussion on what the female was doing/ how she was dressed before she’s
accorded the moral right to a response by the authorities towards the perpetrator.
This is seen in all walks of life- from the humblest back street to parliament
where the quality of female leadership and the regard it’s held in is still
very, very degraded.
Patriarchal Anxieties
It’s in this context where you find our female leaders are still not
accorded the respect and rights that their male counterparts fully expect. It
is in this toxic environment where Duale feels fully comfortable perpetrating what could be considered workplace harassment of female MPs. His attempt to dress his
fellow female MPs echoes and validates the louts and criminals that were
stripping and assaulting women who were “indecently dressed” not too long ago.
His patriarchal anxieties over fellow parliamentarians’
bodies are misplaced and particularly insidious as they try and limit female
agency in the one place where we fully expect the full assertion of rights and
expectation of equal treatment by and for all members of parliament. Make no mistake
about it- this wasn’t an off the cuff remark by an avuncular MP who’s upset by the
“tight” trousers that are being worn by his colleagues. On utterances, Foucault
cautions that we should focus on the statement not just as a descriptive utterance,
but as a discursive event. Our clothing
and dress is very much structured and shaped by power. A parliament that’s
still largely in the control of men has dressing standards that are shaped, determined
and dictated by men. Where equally
powerful women, and other marginalised populations are able to penetrate these
spaces, they bring the potential to expand and de-familiarise the notions of
what ‘acceptable’ dressing is. It is this discomfort with the shifting of
boundaries that leads to these utterances by Duale and his ilk.
Break down that statement down, and you see it for the
non-benign statement that it is. It’s an
argument that’s meant to discomfit fellow parliamentarians and reduce them to the
sum part of their female bodies. It serves
as a reminder to female MPs that their bodies are under observation, and that
the tightness of their trousers makes them even more observable. It seeks to
rob them of agency over one of the most basic choices- that of how they dress.
It deliberately seeks to disadvantage female MPs as once “tight trousers” are tabled
as an acceptable point of order, it is but one more thing that the female MPs
have to navigate in addition to the other more pressing and legitimate business
that brought them to parliament.
Fear of a Female
Planet
Duale’s problematic statements are but more of the same of
what African women faced during and in post-colonial Kenya. The colonial
encounter’s obsession with the black female body has been well documented where
the clothing of Kenya was considered an integral part of ‘civilising’ Kenya. The
colonial trope of the unclothed female body as unclean /unwell still persists
in independent Kenya where post-colonial agents like Duale continue in this tradition
of monitoring public exposure of female bodies.
Women in Kenya occupy this paradoxical space where we’re
both custodians of all that’s virtuous and decent, while still being morally
polluting Jezebels (unless guided by men) - truly a Schrödinger's cat that’s simultaneously
madonna and harlot. This fear of the ‘unclothed’ female form, the differently
clothed female form is rooted in a fear of female sexuality and ultimately fear
of female freedom.
It’s however a fear that has no space in a Kenya whose Constitution
accords both men and women equal rights, and it especially has no fear in parliament
where we fully expect grown women and men to do grown people’s business. If
someone’s clothing offends Duale, he should simply avert his eyes. He has no absolutely
no business in the ‘tight’ trousers of MPs.
The video is shaky and blurry. It’s hard to make out what is
going on at first. The anonymous cameraman focuses and then you see the
crowd of men milling around her. A mass
of “stronger than her” male force united in one common goal. And the last of her
clothes, this flimsy shield that cannot stand to the force of this “stronger
than her” mob, her one barrier- is torn away.Her body, private when she left home, is now public by force. A public
viewing for anyone that has the muscle and the mob force to want to partake of
it. And take it they do. Violently.
And the camera man films on.Sounds of her terror and the glee of the mob mix. A sound that strikes pure
fear into the heart. Because, those two sounds in conjunction, herald nothing
that’s ever been good for womenfolk. They are the precursors of the bogeyman, the
rapists, and the plunderers. That’s the
sound Impunity makes when it’s having a bloody good day. This sound: female terrormixed with male
glee.Fear of this sound passed on through our genetic memory. A collective unconscious
knowledge that we were born with, and that from infancy to death, is reinforced
and transmitted to us in a million and one lessons that we are taught everyday
of how it feels to be prey. To be predated on.
The video comes to an abrupt end. She has been able to roll under a bus that was
parked nearby, and the video cuts with someone exhorting someone to “…Move the
bus!! Move the bus!”. He doesn’t want his fun to end! I am shaking and scared. Even in the sanctuary
that I have made my home. I have just witnessed a sexual assault.
And I look at
the view counter. “This video has been viewed 834 times”. This moment of when the crime was committed against her has been replayed for the voyeuristic eyes of 833
people. And me. I have participated in the continuation of her assault. An assault
that lives on, easily shared in a plethora of online videos.
