“Go Wewe kwenda! Wewe mjinga kumbaff (Go away, you are a fool!) I am going to deal with you and Chipukizi … I will deal with your personally! Wewe nyege zako na sigara zako peleka huko carnivore! “ said Mike Sonko to Caroline Mutoko.
If you are from another planet or are not active on social media Mike Sonko and Caroline Mutoko had beef yesterday. Caroline Mutoko had called Sonko to ask about why he dishes out handouts instead of creating sustainable development projects and Sonko when cornered resorted to insults.
This post is not about defending Caroline Mutoko she can do that on her own. This post is about why many men when they get defensive resort to calling women names and calling them whores and bitches.
The fact of the matter is that Sonko does help his constituents by giving them money. He has a “good” heart and that is not in dispute. But it is true also that he hasn’t as of now created projects for his constituency which are self sustainable without his money which is what Caroline was asking about.
“She was saying my work is just to dish out money to people. She abused Nairobi people saying they usually file outside my office begging for handouts. She was just discussing negative things about me; how Chipukizi will impregnate my daughters. Last week, they discussed how Chipukizi will impregnate the daughter of the president.”
Well in the case of his daughter it is all fun and games when the station is talking about somebody else’s daughter but not yours. And that is the issue. On social media and in the media you find men talking badly about women, calling them bitches, whores, fat, or ugly among other things. The list goes on. But when it is their own relative suddenly it is not right. Men if you want women including your sisters, mothers, wives, and relatives to be treated right and not discussed badly it starts with you.
Caroline Mutoko’s sexuality and her sexual life was not the subject of the discussion yesterday. So why did Sonko go there? Does it matter who she is sleeping with? That is her business and as long as it is not out in the public it is none of our business! Did she ask who Sonko was sleeping with? Would it have been relevant to the discussion at hand? She wasn’t the one talking about impregnating his daughter. Why attack her? Sonko could have called and said very politely “I actually listen to your show and I am not happy about my daughter being talked about like that. Please stop it!” he would have passed his point across.
I saw Sonko saying that he is a father and as a father he has to defend his daughters and take care of them. So where was he when one of his daughter’swas being taken phonographic pictures? You cannot be a good dad selectively. If he had taught his daughters right from wrong then his daughter would have known that what she was doing was wrong.
I am not taking anybody’s side in this issue. I am speaking up on behalf of women. Just in case you didn’t know verbal abuse is still abuse. Words hurt.
Good men should stand up for women. It does not make you a good man when you stand up for your sister or girlfriend but you won’t stand up when other women are being called names. Today it will be them tomorrow it will be your sister, girlfriend, wife, mother, or daughter. Calling a woman names does not make you a real man.
The best judge of whether or not a country is going to develop is how it treats its women. If it’s educating its girls, if women have equal rights, that country is going to move forward. But if women are oppressed and abused and illiterate, then they’re going to fall behind.
BARACK OBAMA, Ladies’ Home Journal, Sep. 2008
