Gender and Governance in Kenya: Women's Journey Beyond Numbers

Abstract

This chapter is informed by the view that human relations, including gender relations, are fundamentally organized around power relations. The issues and concerns that arise fromthose relations revolve around the challenges of sharing power in an equitable and just manner. The gendered power hierarchies that emerge in the allocation of strategic resources and labour are legitimized by a patriarchal social-cultural ideology that is deeplyembedded and normalized by many societies. Thischapter, therefore, argues that in Kenya as elsewhere, the power question is central to thepersisting inequalities between women and men in governance. The chapter thus seeks toanalysethe Kenya women's journey on the road towards gender equity, equality and social justice through effective participation in public decision-making structures and processes. It reflectson the significance of the gains made; the hurdles that remain and provokes us to criticallyreflect on the next steps and what needs to happen; the strategies that need to be deployedand followed through; the kind of critical actors/torch-bearers that need to emerge toguide the next phase(s) of the journey and the outcomes that should be envisaged. Thecentral argument of the chapter is that attaining the magical 33% minimum threshold ofwomen's presence in public decision-making bodies should be treated as only a first step, as it does not automatically translate numbers into the influence needed to achieve and sustain the desired equity and social justice. The chapter is informed by my journey as a feminist International Studies scholar, seeking to make sense of the world in which we live; a world characterized by various types of social injustices and human beings' self-inflicted pain and loss through wars and avoidable conflicts, among others. These largely arise, in my view, from insatiable selfishness and greed; desire for monopoly of power and unwillingness to share it with others. Consequently, those with strategic power, whether economic, social or political, resist any efforts to share it. In respect to gender relations, the power question is central to the persisting inequalities between women and men in governance.