Living in a Sexist State

Working for a women’s empowerment organization often makes me forget how destitute women really are in the world. Obviously, women are of lesser status in the majority world, but it’s easy to forget when working alongside wonderful, independent, powerful women.

Machismo is not the norm in Kenya. Men are polite and accommodating, even chivalrous. Honestly, my only friends here are men, but only because the women spend 18 hours a day boiling water for bathing, cooking three meals a day, sweeping dirt floors, working on their shamba (the Swahili word for farm), and raising hoards of children (the average in the village is between 4 and 7, but I personally know one family that has 19 children).

The men are not bad people. They aren’t subjugating their wives and daughters for fun (or so I’d like to believe); sexism is so deeply rooted in the cultural mores and religious practices that even the women believe that they are less worthy. While women are expected to be strict Muslims, wear their bui buis and hijabs, and pray five times a day, they are not allowed to enter mosques. Men must always be served first, even if that means that the women and girls must go without the food that they grew, gathered, and cooked.

A friend of mine, who is a nice, down to earth, friendly guy who refuses to let me pay for anything despite the fact that he makes about $12 a month. I recently went to visit his house where I met his entire family. When I suggested that we could do our own dishes, he guffawed as if I had suggested that he should attempt to give birth to quintuplets. Sincerely, he explained that when there are no women around, he was at the bottom of the hierarchy and had to do the family’s grunt work. But as long as his sisters were there, they must do everything. He laughed about how sometimes he has to beat his sisters. When I asked why, he replied, “If they don’t do everything I tell them to, I have to cane them. Otherwise they’ll never learn.”

I am trying to be a cultural relativist. But seeing women treated like dogs is difficult to stomach. And attempting to improve their situation by giving them education, jobs, and birth control is only making it worse for some of them. How are we supposed to reach gender equality without becoming cultural imperialists?