Why are gangs of men allowed to roam our city streets,
attacking women with impunity and stripping them of their clothes and dignity?
Why is another gang of men roaming the internet and seeking to put women in their
place? Why do any of them feel they can arrogate to themselves the authority to
dictate to our women how they should dress?
I find it hard to believe that the #NudityIsNotMyChoice crowd
are too dim to see the link between the idea that they should have a choice
over what women wear and actually doing something to enforce that. They are
thus being disingenuous when the claim that they are against the assaults on
women. In fact, their leader and spokesman, Robert Alai, has flip-flopped on
the issue, first advocating for the stripping of supposedly indecently dressed women and later
suggesting that those who do so should be jailed.
His moral acrobatics are illustrative of the intellectual confusion
of those who on the one hand protest their belief that women should not be
subjected to such indignities while on the other hand insisting that women conform
to their ideas of propriety. It is inconceivable that they do not realize that
these are two sides of the same coin. That it is the threat of violence that is
used to keep women in line, to control them and keep them subservient to the
desires and wishes of men.
It is obvious that dress is only the tip of the iceberg. It is
also not just about control of women’s sexuality (though that is, a big part of
it - more on this below). In the end the furore over hemlines is really about the power of one group
of Kenyans to exercise power over another. It is about the power of one group
to impose its preferences on another, to value its comfort over the rights of
the other.
Viewed in the context of other retrogressive measures introduced in the recent past, such as the attack on civil society and the collective punishment of communities, it is hard not to recognize a wider pattern of rolling back the rights
and freedoms articulated in the constitution by groups that perceive themselves
as having lost out: the men who feel that their position of power vis a vis
women is threatened, the political elite who fear the emancipation of Kenyans
will deprive them of opportunities for extracting rents. As I argue here, the violence we see is part of a backlash against the
rights of individuals to determine for themselves how they should lead their
lives.
Indeed, it is
instructive that while those supporting women’s rights ground their arguments
in the freedoms espoused in the constitution and on the laws we have in our
books, their opponents are at pains to not just qualify these rights, but to
demonize their exercise as a harbinger of chaos. One blogger suggests that the debate “is about everything we are willing to
give latitude to as a society. The next thing we will be seeing are prostitutes
asking for their trade to be legalized and with the latitude we are extending
they will get that, then we will stop asking questions when we see underage
girls in night clubs and before we know it corruption will so much be within
our rights.”
Another appears to argue that even though assault is a crime, that the victims must somehow
be responsible for provoking the attack. “Blaming the touts solely for their
‘misconduct’ is, not only subjective, but also outright biased. Before any
reaction, then there must be an action. The Embassava touts did not just decide
to strip the woman like mad dogs. The woman might have done something to
trigger such a reaction,” he declares, suggesting that habitually exercising the
right to dress as she wishes makes her blameworthy.
The fact is the online chauvinists share much the same
worldview as the Embassava thugs. They see the attempt to hold the latter to
account as a collective condemnation of, as one puts it, “(all) men as sexual
perverts, sex pests, sexually starved, naughty minds, rapists, misogynists,
etc.” They are unwilling to countenance any challenge to the system that
privileges their “choice” over the rights of women.
So whether they realize it or not, those demanding a say in
how women dress are the online enablers of offline violence against women. Their
open contempt for women’s rights offers succor and dubious intellectual cover
to those who go even further. So just as we insist that the perpetrators of
violence against women are swiftly brought to book, we must not ignore the
pernicious ideology of entitlement to women’s bodies that feeds it.
While respecting –and even defending-
the right of people to express their views, as abhorrent and stupid as those
views may be, we must not cede online spaces to the chauvinists. Those who truly
believe that women are human beings, that they should be able to dress in any
way they please and walk down our streets unmolested, that no Kenyan should
have the right to tell another how they should live their lives, must speak up.
We must not accept to be silenced by the demagogues.
