Why Kenyan women don’t need favours in scaling the heights

The doctrine of universal suffrage gives the right to all adult citizens to vote regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or any other restriction subject to relatively minor exceptions such as bankruptcy, certain classes of criminal records and electoral offences.

In the first of modern democracies, governments restricted the right to vote to those with property and wealth, which almost always meant a minority of the male population. In traditional African societies women were only to be seen and not to be heard in civic matters.

The 19th century saw many movements advocating “universal (male) suffrage”, most notably in Europe, Britain and North America. Beginning in the latter part of that century, women’s suffrage, aside from the work being done by them for broad-based economic and political equality and for social reforms, sought to change voting laws to allow them to cash their ballots.

Many instances occurred where women were selectively granted, and then stripped off, the right to vote. The first province in the world to award and maintain women’s suffrage was Wyoming Territory in 1869, and the first sovereign nation was Norway in 1913. Most major western powers extended voting rights to women during the interwar period, notable exceptions being France, where women could not vote until 1944, Greece (1952), and Switzerland (1971).

The contribution of women during the wars challenged the notion of their physical and mental inferiority and, made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. Nevertheless, extended political campaigns by women and their supporters have been necessary to gain legislative and constitutional amendments for women’s suffrage.

The United Nations encouraged the emancipation of women in the years following World War II, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) identifies it as a basic right with 189 countries currently being signatories to the convention.

During Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister (1979-1990), I recall seeing a poster in the underground depicting Denis Thatcher in the kitchen at 10 Downing Street, wearing a Union Jack emblazoned apron, washing dishes. At the bottom of the poster was a caption saying, “Imagine there was a time when women were not even allowed to vote!” Attitudes had still not changed even by the 1980s.

I also remember my career working at the National Bank of Kenya (which had adopted operating systems from the National and Grindlays Bank operating in British colonies).

During the late 1970s a number of women started to rise to managerial grades in the bank, but the credit policy did not allow them to access preferential housing loans in this previously male-dominated industry.

I suppose the thinking was that they would be married to husbands who were sufficiently well heeled to take care of their every need. I happened to be a manager in the credit department of head office during the 1980s and I championed the case for women officers to be allowed to apply for housing loans in tandem with their male counterparts. The board approved and the policy was amended to include women officers. It was a question of changing attitudes.

The subject of women’s rights has come into the limelight again this week with the Chief Justice David Maraga advising the President to dissolve parliament for failing to enact laws on gender quotas. Under the Constitution of 2010, parliament had five years to enact legislation ensuring that no more than two-thirds of members of elective public bodies are of one gender.

I agree with Speakers of our two houses that the gender law is impractical and impossible to implement because the Constitution defines a fixed number of seats in the National Assembly and the Senate and at the same time, gives the citizens the right to exercise their free will when it comes to electing their representatives. You cannot force people to vote or appoint a certain class of people just to meet gender requirements. That would be a kind of reverse-discrimination against other classes of people.

It is my submission that women have every right to vie for elective and non-elective positions in the public as well as the private sectors purely on the basis of merit.

They do not need any backhanded favour to exercise this right. Whoever invented the phrase “women are the weaker sex” had no basis and, in fact, if I were to be asked, women have a higher threshold to withstand the pain and challenges of life.

Women are the home makers of many families and they often bring up children (and husbands) single-handedly. They mold and uphold moral upbringing in children, teaching them the concept of right and wrong.

What we need to focus on, for everyone regardless of gender, is integrity and ethical performance, in other words, doing the right thing. Many women are skeptical about offering themselves for elective positions because they fear that they will be obliged to compromise their moral standing in order to “fit” or pander to partisan interests or political correctness. Other roadblocks such as corruption, nepotism and tribalism stand in the way.

I admire women who have made it to positions of leadership on their own merit and against much opposition such as the late Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai, Nadia Ahmed (28) Chief Administrative Secretary, Naisula Lesuuda, MP for Samburu and Yvonne Okwara, journalist and TV anchor at Citizen TV.

Further afield, the recently deceased Supreme Court judge Ruth Baider Ginsburg has spent her whole life fighting for gender equality, scoring many landmark achievements in the process.

I am more concerned about our young men because the young ladies are way ahead. I think we now need a “boy child” movement. The “girl child” movement of the 1990s seems to have been a massive success.

Just like racism, gender is a hearts and minds campaign to change people’s attitudes.

To all you ladies out there, “A luta continua, a vitória é certa”. I have your backs!