Women And Equal Rights: Why This Is Still An Ongoing Fight

With how accessible resources are in the present day, it’s alarming to realize that things only changed for the better a few years ago. This discussion was triggered by a tweet, where a user, vanna, was astounded to realise that women in the US were only allowed to open bank accounts in 1974. Progress is not as old as we think it is. Progressive movements like feminism remain as relevant as ever when you consider how much work there is to be done to gain equal rights for women.

A letter to the New York Times compared feminism to public health wins like vaccination, “Many of the problems have been eliminated so the success isn’t appreciated.” Many of the problems women faced are now a thing of the past. Global laws now enshrined that women must have access to education, healthcare, and equal rights. But this doesn’t negate that women still don’t have equal rights. There is a lot of work still to be done to ensure equality.

The women’s rights gaps in Kenya

Women couldn’t get national ID cards until 1978. This prevented many of them from accessing all resources requiring IDs such as bank accounts, business permits, or passports. In addition, married female civil servants couldn’t get housing allowances until 1989. Banks refused to give women mortgages because it was believed that their husbands would house them. It wasn’t until 1998 that female civil servants could get permanent and pensionable job positions. Beforehand, they could only get three-year contracts.

The problem with having a system driven by such patriarchal beliefs is that it makes it difficult for families to survive. When a working woman’s potential income is limited by her marital status, it limits the opportunities the family has for growing wealth. Three-year contractual positions were the norm because employers thought women would eventually leave the workplace to start a family and be stay-at-home mothers.

In the present day, women have the option to parent from home and run businesses online. But while this flexibility has made it easier for women to explore their options, it hasn’t safeguarded them.

The property issue

Women were able to secure ancestral land inheritance in 2010. However, 94% of the land in Kenya is controlled by men, 4% of the land is owned jointly by men and women, and only 1% is controlled by women. The majority of Kenyan women live in rural food production areas but don’t control the land they farm on. The current government is also trying to introduce a bill that further exacerbates the problem for poor farmers, mostly women, who rely on subsistence farming to provide an income for their families.

Women also often have to rely on their proximity to patriarchy, either through their husbands or fathers, to gain control of the land. In 2012, the Land Registration Act recognised women’s rights to inherit marital land. However, marriage isn’t enough to protect women’s rights to property. Kenyan women have often found themselves stuck in situations where they leave a marriage with no claim to a property they helped manage or nurture. Their domestic contributions are often not taken into consideration because they are deemed to have no capitalist value. This also reflects how childcare and housework are valued concerning worker compensation. As some of the most common positions in households, workers hired to take care of children or houses don’t get paid a liveable wage or are subjected to abuse that they can’t get justice for.

Gender-based violence

It was only in 2015 that the constitution criminalised domestic violence. Parliament passed the Protection against Domestic Violence Act. The Sexual Offences Act in 2006 recognises sexual violence against women but it still doesn’t consider marital rape a criminal offence. Article 43 of the Act even goes as far as to provide an exemption for spousal rape claiming that women consent to conjugation merely by marriage. 50 countries have criminalised marital rape but Kenya trails behind in claiming such progress.

Women are also subjected to gender-based violence and femicide at disproportionate rates. According to the Gender Violence Recovery Centre, between 39% and 47% of women experience gender-based violence in their lives. This is one of the highest rates in the world. One in three Kenyan women has experienced sexual violence before turning 18. Hundreds of women are killed each year in instances of femicide.

Kenyan leaders also contribute to the normalisation of gender-based violence by constantly repeating rhetoric that dehumanises women. During the anti-femicide marches in February 2024, Murang’a Women’s Rep Sabina Chege made inflammatory remarks blaming victims of femicide for their reliance on men “to get to the top”. In December 2020, Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna claimed a female political rival was “not attractive enough to rape.” Linguistic sexism contributes to how women are mistreated in their homes, localities and workplaces.

Sexism in the workplace

Women are still subjected to stringent dress codes that perpetuate sexism in the workplace. Women’s dress codes are still designed with the male gaze in mind rather than functionality. If a woman is plus-sized, she will be shamed or subjected to needless scrutiny while men aren’t. In January 2022, Bishop David Gakuyo stated that two female electoral candidates were campaigning by “swinging bare behinds”.

In addition, a 2023 UN Women report found that the monthly gender pay gap is 31.3%. Women also work fewer total hours than men. This is because of the unpaid home labour they do to manage their households. It’s also caused by discrimination in the workplace. However, it’s important to remember that preference also contributes to number of hours worked daily. But even when men work similarly fewer hours, on average, they earn more. Women are also paid less in sectors that are considered feminine like administrative work, teaching, or nursing. According to one Twitter user, in 2005, a local institution decided not to renew the contracts of all secretarial workers. The highest-paid gratuity was Ksh. 40,000. In the trade sector, women are paid 13.5% less than men. In accommodation, women are paid 29.2% less while they’re paid 37.6% in the education sector.

Women are also subjugated to harassment in the workplace. Most notably, in 2023, Brown’s Food Company subjected women to invasive inspection to find out who had disposed of a used sanitary towel in the wrong bin. Period shaming has also occurred in schools and parliament when a sitting senator was ordered home after she stained her slacks. Not only are women subjected to this but they also experience sexual harassment. Sexual exploitation has been happening on tea farms since 2008 and no measures have been put in place to prevent or resolve it. In June 2024, one of the named perpetrators from a BBC expose on the exploitation of tea farm workers, John Chebochok was elected director of Toror Tea Factory. It was only after public outcry that his position was nullified. Actions like these undermine the safety of female workers.

On identity

As recently as 2002, unmarried women couldn’t get passports unless they got their fathers’ approval. Mothers couldn’t get passports for their children unless their spouses sent a letter of approval. This made it impossible for children of estranged fathers or wives of absent husbands to acquire passports. If a father was deceased, an applicant had to apply for a passport with a father’s death certificate. As mentioned earlier, women also couldn’t get IDs until 1978 after the government passed the Registration of Persons Act (Cap 107).

Parenthood

A global study found that recruiters are less likely to hire women with children. In addition, a job is also less likely to offer you a position, even if you’re qualified, when you interview while pregnant. The same study found that mothers are less likely to get recommended for jobs compared to fathers. Employers assume that mothers will ask for more time off to take care of their children. They also offer lower salaries to women about to become mothers when hired for new positions. This phenomenon is the motherhood penalty.

The Kenyan government does say that companies should provide at least two weeks of maternity leave to mothers. In addition, it’s illegal to dismiss workers who are out on maternity leave. Most institutions, however, make no allowances for returning mothers. There are no benefits that offer to subsidize childcare costs. Few companies provide on-site daycare facilities. There is little consideration for post-natal health needs like checkups, and working from home sometimes. Companies also don’t offer maternity leave for adoption, miscarriages, or even adoption loss.

The country is also experiencing higher rates of unplanned pregnancies, especially among teenage girls. This is because of a lack of comprehensive sexual education. Misguided patriarchal values that place religious moralism over the well-being of women lead to poor decision-making. Having an abstinence-only sex education program shames teens into having sex secretly rather than wisely. Culture also perpetuates a belief that girls are solely responsible for unplanned pregnancies, and so they can be shamed into not returning to school to finish their education.

Education

According to KIPPRA (Kenya Institute for Public Research and Analysis), there has been a higher enrolment of girls in secondary schools in 2022 compared to 2021 where there was a significant drop. This is promising. However, girls are often forced to abandon plans to advance their education due to poverty. In some instances, they’re forced to stay home and take care of their younger siblings, and get casual jobs to contribute to the family’s survival. In more drastic situations, girls are forced to marry wealthier men without their consent to ensure their families get a nest egg during a crisis such as drought.

The government needs to provide more measures to ensure children can gain access to education regardless of their parent’s financial situation. In 2002, former president Mwai Kibaki established the free primary school program that enabled impoverished families to finally send children to school. However, it has had its setbacks as successive governments have failed to ensure children have functional schools, well-funded teaching staff and school safety.

Why is it so difficult to accomplish equality for women?

Feminism strives to get women equal rights from the moment they’re born. But intersectional feminism covers other marginalised groups, some of which include men. But many people who believe in patriarchy think that feminism is a bad thing. They believe that feminism is the antithesis of patriarchy and since patriarchy is rooted in the discrimination of women, feminism seeks to discriminate against men. And thus, it should be stopped because it will upset the “natural order”.

Kenyan leaders have frequently undermined progress. When leaders don’t work to ensure equity, the most vulnerable people in society bear the brunt of it. Laws, rules, and practices that don’t enable women eventually lead to a limping society. The generations of women that came before achieved their victories through hard labour and the belief in a truly equal society. Human rights advocates, feminists, and other advocacy groups continue to take meaningful steps to ensure women retain the rights they’ve gained. When women are collectively freed from oppressive systems and exploitation, our society will achieve true equality.

Women in Kenya could open a bank account but it wasn’t until the 1990s that a woman could get a mortgage & even then it was resisted. Only a few women got it. Women who worked for the government weren’t paid house allowance if they were married. https://t.co/PblsVfXMXZ

— Rayhab 🇰🇪 (@potentash) September 12, 2024