GLOBALIZATION: WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE KENYAN WOMAN?

Introduction

Globalisation may be defined as the shrinking of the world into what is popularly referred to as “the global village.” This implies faster, more efficient and more effective communication between people from one end of the globe to the other. Travelling is faster than ever before and whenever physical presence is not a necessity, the cell-phone and the international super highway can facilitate quick connectivity between people in different places. In the area of finance, one does not have to travel to the Isle of Man, for instance, to access an off-shore account: telephone and internet banking can do the trick. Similarly, in order to purchase items far afield one need not travel: viewing, selecting, ordering and all other transactions can be facilitated by the internet.

The concept of globalisation involves the breaking of frontiers that had hitherto hindered human beings from operating outside their national borders. Whereas in days gone by training tended to be tailored to the needs of one’s motherland, nowadays people are at pains to gain competitive advantages that can facilitate employment in the international job market. Hence the movement of human resources from one country to another has gained momentum, leading to the phenomenon of brain drain.

The liberalization of the sale of commodities has eased trading with the result that one can venture into foreign markets without having to jump too many hurdles. As long as one has the necessary funds, one can export and import goods to and from all corners of the globe. One can now engage at all levels of involvement in the international markets. For instance, one can have joint ventures with entities from all over the world and even aim as high as owning, or at least having significant shares, in multinational companies.

At this juncture, lest we are tempted to be mesmerized, let us stop and think about the Kenyan woman vis-à-vis the above-outlined glamour. For the Kenyan woman, to take advantage of globalisation it is not enough for the climate to be right. It is imperative that she has access to the appropriate attire for the various weather conditions the global arena presents.

The Kenyan woman’s condition is fraught with problems. In fact it would be correct to give any of the following answers to the question as to who really is this entity called the Kenyan woman:

• She is that female individual who, whether in the rural or urban areas, has to work some 16 hours a day for the survival of her family;
  
• She is the person you see at the back of city council lorries crying as she clutches her baby, wondering what her children will eat if her wares are commandeered;
  
• She is the woman in shabby clothes seated at street corners or moving, hand outstretched, from one motorist to the other, thoroughly ignored by the (possibly affluent) fathers of her children;
  
• She is the person you hear rending the air with her wailing as a whip is applied on her back to teach her how to be a good woman;
  
• She is that bent back you see cultivating in the field or the one bent under a load, on her way to the market;
  
• She is the voice that struggles hard to be heard in high-level decision-making forums.
  

The Cultural Place of the Kenyan Woman

The Kenyan woman, regardless of her community of origin and regardless of her station in life, occupies a second-class position. Ours has been and is still a male-dominated society. The patriarchal hierarchies designed by our great grandparents, implemented by our grandparents and perfected by our fathers are still alive and being justified by contemporary society.

Remember those three beatings of the drum instead of four? Remember those four ululations instead of five? Remember those half-hearted congratulations? These are the responses when a girl is delivered instead of a boy.

As if this was not enough, our oral literature paints for our children a negative image of their mothers and sisters with hurtful lashes of the tongue. The riddle is the first genre of oral literature that a child is introduced to. Although it is performed in the context of play, the riddle nonetheless introduces a child to his/her environment and, more importantly, to the gender dynamics in his/her community. Many children, especially those in the countryside, therefore have a negative image of women imprinted on their minds at an early age.

Though indeed marriage is expected to give a woman respectability, going through the rite does not necessarily erase the negative attitude towards women. Examples from other genres of oral literature illustrate this. Who has never heard of the proverb “co-wives are like two pots of poison?” In oral narratives, who has never come across the cruel stepmother who buries her co-wife’s child alive when her husband has travelled? And what about those lullabies we use to lull babies to sleep that convey the message that the mothers are mean to have gone to work leaving baby with the child-minder? And the beer-drinking songs that present women as promiscuous?

The tragic position is that, in spite of their tremendous contributions, women are regarded as mere helpers who have no jurisdiction to lay claim to ownership of property. In most cases, it is assumed that family property should naturally be in the name of the man, thus barring the woman from ownership. The many hurdles a widow has to go through in the battles for inheritance on the death of her husband prove this abundantly.

Why do you think our female cabinet ministers are having such a hard time convincing the public that the projects they are engaged in are strategies to improve the plight of the masses? The negative image of Kenyan women has deep roots in our African cultures. How many times have we heard attempts to support women being termed, “unAfrican” or “against the African culture?” If there is a tree that needs pruning of irrelevant twigs, it is the African culture. Whenever it is convenient, there is a tendency to justify discrimination and other forms oppression against women using African traditional culture. This will be seen, for instance with regard to access to education.

Other Disadvantages

Kenyan girls, particularly in the rural areas, have many challenges with which to contend. Even if a girl is not taken out of school to enable parents to cope with financial demands to educate boys, girls have so many out-of-school responsibilities that it becomes difficult to concentrate. For example, they are the substitute mothers for their younger and even for the older boy siblings. Such factors definitely negatively impact on a girls’ performance in examinations since she must sacrifice a significant amount of time that could otherwise have been spent on homework or revision for examinations.
The fact that the Kenyan woman lags behind her male counterpart in education gives rise to the excuse to marginalize women in decision-making forums. Naturally, the fewer female voices heard at high decision-making levels, the slower the pace in ameliorating women’s access to educational opportunities. Subsequently, the wider the vicious circle becomes.

We do not have to look very far to see how lonely our women in key decision-making positions are. A glance at the Kenyan Parliament illustrates this point very well. Women make up hardly ten percent of parliamentarians. Representation at cabinet level is even less.

What does all the above have to do with Kenyan women’s position vis-à-vis globalisation? A great deal. We must understand where the Kenyan woman stands in her own society before we can talk about her condition in the wider global society. The question to ask at this juncture is, if charity begins at home and if this is meagre at home, how much hope does the Kenyan woman have outside her home? In other words, if the Kenyan woman has to contend with so many problems in her own motherland, she can only be expected to fare worse out there where she has to cope with numerous and diverse adverse factors.

Globalisation: What’s in it for the Kenyan Woman?

Kenyan women form slightly over half of the country’s 35 million people. They are the tillers of the land, they are the food processing and marketing resource people, and they are the psychological and physical nurturers of families. In other words, when we talk about the position of Kenyan women in the global village, we are referring to the half of the population on whose shoulders the country stands.

For the Kenyan woman, the global village seems to be a mirage or an elusive spring of water. To begin with, the rural woman lacks not only the tools but also the necessary training and information to take advantage of this spring. Education empowers individuals through imparting knowledge and information. In addition, it broadens one’s outlook so that one can gain awareness to alternative means of survival. Without it, therefore, how can the rural woman be expected to take cognisance of what the global village offers? Similarly, if these women are not culturally equipped to venture further than their homesteads, it would be difficult for them to stand up and walk before they can see these alternatives.

An unfortunate scenario presents itself with regard to the urban poor women. In most cases, the urban poor women and girls are uneducated, semi-skilled and unskilled, constantly in search of means of survival for themselves and their children. Owing to lack of job opportunities many of them have ended up selling the only wares at their disposal: their bodies. Hence they have become commodities and lost the human face that would enable them to access the global market as human beings. Subsequently the global market has ended up trading in them, either at home or as sex exports abroad.

Kenyan women are generally handicapped when it comes to accessing the international market as business people. In order to engage in business at this level, one needs a significant amount of money as capital. However, women are financially handicapped for a number of reasons.

Alice Carloni found that more women in Kenya committed their income to family’s daily subsistence and nutrition than their male counterparts.1 In any case, as Judith Bruce observes:

though the specifics of women’s consumption responsibilities vary in Africa and across the world, it is quite commonly found that gender ideologies support the notion that men have a right to personal spending money…which they are deemed to need or deserve, and that women’s income is for collective purposes.”2
This would mean that women have difficulties accumulating surplus funds that are needed as a capital base in business.

It was noted above how discriminatory customs and practices bar women from inheriting property and even deprive them of their personal assets after their husbands’ demise. Lack of property means that a woman generally cannot use banks, not having something to offer as security.

This paper would not be complete without an illustration of the handicaps faced by women in the international labour markets. For some decades now, the global labour market has been recruiting, not on the basis of citizenship but on the basis of qualifications, competence and suitability to the particular job. In this market, Kenyan women are victims of the gender discrimination experienced by their sisters elsewhere in the world. Though the global labour market purports to be gender-impartial, men are preferred even in cases where women may be equally or more qualified. The discrimination is very subtle, but commitments to their families are some of the consideration given to deny women job opportunities. Prospective employers are particularly wary of women in their reproductive and child-rearing stage. Yet the irony is that this is among the most energetic and creative stages of a woman’s cycle.

There are countries that are openly discriminative and will specify the gender preference in the advertisements. For instance, the oil-rich Arab countries have for decades opened their doors only to female nurses. This preference is natural because nursing has traditionally been a woman’s career but it means that women in the traditionally male-dominated fields have not been so fortunate.

General gender-bias in the global labour market notwithstanding, there are culture-related hindrances peculiar to the Kenyan woman. Whereas a man is free to leave the country without seeking the consent of his wife or wives, it is expected that women confirm that their husbands have no objection to their taking up positions (including scholarships) abroad. In a male-dominated society such as ours, it is not unusual for an official to misuse his power to make certain that a fellowman’s wife does not travel overseas.

Conclusion

From the foregoing, it would appear that Kenyan women cannot profit sufficiently from the advantages in job mobility that globalisation offers. Though the global village is fertile with opportunities that could help uplift them from their current adverse socio-economic situation, there are numerous problems for them to overcome before they can gain access to the global market place.
The situation, however, is not all gloom. Some Kenyan women have indeed ventured into some markets outside the national borders. For example, there are those who travel to Dubai and Turkey to purchase various goods for sale here.
Kenyan women are and have always been extremely hardworking, enterprising and creative. The most outstanding character traits of the Kenyan woman through the ages have been their endurance, courage, resilience and commitment. It is these traits that enabled her to survive the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial struggles. One has only to read the profiles of Chief Mang’ana, Kobilo Kwondab Kimpsop, Moraa Moka Ngiti, Ciokalaine-O-M’barungu, Mekatili and Wangu wa Makeri to become convinced of this.