By Kathambi Kinoti

Last week, a Kenyan women’s movement called the Gender 10 (G10 for short) captured the attention of the public when it declared a one-week sex boycott. G10 in protesting the feuding within the country’s coalition government evoked the action of the women of Greece in the ancient play Lysistrata. In the play, the women collectively decide to withhold sex from their men in order to force them to end the Peloponnesian war. In real life and more recently, in 2003, women in Liberia vowed to go on a sex strike until a ceasefire was declared in the nation’s civil war. Eventually the pressure brought to bear by this and other strategies that the women employed impacted on the cessation of the protracted war.

Dire situation

Kenya erupted into conflict after elections in December 2007, the results of which were fiercely disputed. In early 2008, in order to bring an end to the conflict, a coalition government was formed, with the incumbent President retaining his position and his primary challenger in the elections becoming the nation’s Prime Minister. Since then, the relationship between the two has not been smooth, with continual arguments about the role and status of the Prime Minister vis-à-vis the President. The fear that Kenya could revert to armed conflict has remained present. Apart from the in-fighting within the government, there have been reports that al-Shabaab, a militia group in based in neighbouring Somalia has threatened to annex the north-eastern province of Kenya. There has been a tussle between Kenya and Uganda over the Migingo Island in Lake Victoria, which is the largest inland lake in Africa, and is shared by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Internally, a cultural fundamentalist terrorist organisation known as Mungiki has caused mayhem in different parts of the country without adequate response from the country’s security forces. In their press statement, G10 expressed their frustration with their government’s infighting and the sense of perpetual vulnerability that it has caused. They also emphasized the disproportionate toll that the 2008 conflict took on women, and the powerlessness and lack of voice that women have continued to experience.

Women’s agenda

G10 has presented a five point agenda that demands:

1. The ceasefire agreement that constituted the coalition government be renegotiated;
2. Before spending time and resources on drafting a new Constitution, the prevailing problem of hunger and poverty must be a priority;
3. Calls for snap elections must not be heeded;
4. The insecurity situation in the country must be addressed urgently;
5. The politics of divisionism should not be allowed to prevail.

It has further pledged to deliver to the President and the Prime Minister performance contracts and accountability audits for their signature.

What’s sex got to do with it?

At least one cabinet minister has indicated that the sex boycott has been effective in getting women’s voices heard, and the Prime Minister’s wife has associated herself with the G10’s demands and their call for the boycott. Nevertheless, although they have presented a clear agenda, the focus of reactions has primarily been on whether or not the group was justified in calling for a sex boycott. Discussion has focussed on heterosexual relations.

While G10’s point has not been primarily about sex, the use of sex as a tool has commanded national and international attention. Even after G10 declared a successful end to the sex boycott, debate has raged on. The boycott raised some eyebrows but also attracted some praise.

Critics have argued that in calling for the sex boycott, G10 was legitimising the portrayal of women as sex objects. Kenyan popular culture – as represented through music, print media, film and advertisements for instance- does tend to portray women as sex objects. Kenya has a plethora of radio stations and a significant number of television stations. They routinely reinforce the idea that sexual desirability is a valid criterion for measuring the worth of a woman and is something that women should continually strive for. Yet many of these mainstream media have been the fiercest critics of G10’s actions.

Most Kenyans identify themselves as Christian or Muslim. During the press conference at which G10 announced the sex boycott, the chairperson of Kenya’s oldest and largest women’s organisation, which is part of G10, said that women were calling for a sex fast. The concept of a fast appealed to the religious side of some Kenyans, although reactions from religious leaders themselves were polarised. Some agreed with the sex ban, but others said that no support for it could be found in religious texts, and it was wrong for the women to have called for it.

Culture- whether traditional or popular- and religion routinely converge to try and dictate how women should relate with their own sexuality. As the experiences of women who are lesbians or sex workers have shown, whenever a woman steps outside the sanctioned boundaries she encounters opposition.

Feminist conundrum

Invoking women’s sexuality as a tactic can be problematic for feminists since women’s bodies, and primarily their sexual bodies have long been the site of patriarchal dominance and oppression. In Whores and other Feminists, [1] Jill Nagle writes about the problems feminists face in opposing the “non-consensual treatment of women as only sexual bodies while simultaneously challenging the cultural hierarchies that devalue and stigmatise sexual bodies.” Using the martial arts of karate and aikido as metaphors for the approaches women can use and have used to resist oppression, Nagle writes:

“Karate is a ‘stop’ martial art in which students are trained to … [disable] the attacker so that they will not be able to inflict harm on anyone else. Karate aims to meet, destroy and overpower oncoming energy with greater, more effective energy, for the safety of all.” [2]

On the other hand,

“Based on an ostensibly opposite philosophy, aikido teaches escape from harm with as little damage as possible to the attacker… To achieve this, aikido technique involves first going with, rather than against the energy of the attack, and then using the attack’s own energy to deflect the attack and escape… An aikido response to sexist oppression might appear complicit with the violence. But part of aikido’s lesson is the paradox that sometimes, to get beyond something, one must first enter into it with benign intention.” [3]

It might seem counterintuitive to use the oppressor’s weapons to fight oppression. However if it presents an opportunity to gain ground and advance an agenda, it is probably a wise way of proceeding.

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1. Nagle J (ed). Whores and other Feminists. New York: Routledge, 1997, p.6.

2. Note 1, p. 7.

3. Ibid.