ASSJ, Vol 1:5 (2016) 84 – 88.
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GENDER AND CHILDREN ON LIBERATION MOVEMENT: THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN
LIBERATION MOVEMENTS
Mary Nyawira Thongo
Post Graduate Student, Kenyatta University
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Corresponding Author:
Mary Nyawira Thongo
Post Graduate Student, Kenyatta
University
[email protected]
The Agikuyu society has been structured in a way that, religion and culture
justify gender hierarchy. This is done in the socialization process and through
classification of roles by gender. Gender imbalance is perceived by both males
and females as natural, and perhaps divine, and therefore, unchangeable.
There is a need to give Agikuyu women more decision-making powers to
enable them participate more fully in development. There is also need to
conscientize both men and women on the need for gender integration. This
will not only liberate AGikuyu people but also the Kenyan society at large.
Women have played a great role in pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial
politics In Kenya, traditional perceptions of women as inferior to men prevail
as many people uphold cultural practices which enhance the subordination of
women. Consequently, men continue to dominate women in political,
economic, social, and religious realms. The latter’s political endeavors,
achievements, and roles in society are hardly recognised or acknowledged.
The paper will be an examination of pre-colonial, Mau Mau and post colonial
politics through the lens of gender hierarchy to determine the role of gender in
liberation movements. Emphasis on how constructions of masculinity and
femininity shape and are shaped by interacting economic, political, and
ideological practices. We will examine gender in the Mau Mau movement. This
study will investigate the extent in which gender has participation in precolonial, Mau Mau and post colonial politic in Kirinyaga County, to represent
central Kenya, the study will commence from 1963 because of the dismal
performance of Kenya in regard to gender equity in political leadership,
despite having pioneered and provided leadership to the Mau Mau movement
and the post-1990 multi-party women empowerment programmes in the East
African region to 2007. Using data from 10 oral respondents 2 from each
county, published and unpublished information I will be able to determine the
role of gender in Mau mau and other political process, in Kenya and
specifically Kirinyaga County of central Kenya.
INTRODUCTION
The Mau Mau Uprising was a military conflict that
took place in Kenya between 1952 and 1960. It involved
Kikuyu-dominated anti-colonial groups summarily called
Mau Mau and elements of the British Army. In 1946,
impatient with the pace of change proposed by KAU, and
angered by the shooting of demonstrators in Nairobi, a group
of former Kikuyu solders formed the 'Forty Group' and
started organising violent opposition to the white settlers.
They joined other groups and began robbing shops and
raiding fire-arms, imposing oaths and eventually executing as
traitors those who were not ready to follow their fight for
freedom. Women became directly involved in 1948, when
workers at Olenguruone agricultural settlement scheme went
on strike: the women refused to participate in terracing the
land to prevent erosion unless they first received title to it.
Supported by the nascent labour unions, the colonial
response was the by now familiar repression.
The resulting ad hoc organisation called itself the Land
Freedom Army (LFA), whose violent resistance to colonial
rule was to become better known in the world as the Mau
Mau Uprising. (Ngugi 1983)
WOMEN AND THE SRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
Scholars have been accused of failing to give enough
attention to the important role played by women in mau mau
, socio-economic and political development. In Africa, and
Kenya in particular, women played a crucial role in the
struggle for independence.
Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License
Page 84
Mary /Gender And Children On Liberation Movement: The Role Of Women In Liberation Movements
Women were the backbone of the resistance movement
against the colonial invasion in Kenya. During the Abagusii
resistance, for example, the elderly Kitutu prophetess, Moraa,
incited Otenyo, one of the kisii warriors, to spear General
Northcote in 1908. The prophetess is reported to have rallied
the Abagusii sections of Kitutu, nyaribari and Wanchare
against the British. Similarly, in Ukambani, a prophetess,
Syotune wa Kithuke, used a dance called kilumi in 1911 to
mobilize the Akamba to protest against British colonialism.
The dance was traditionally performed by medicinemen to
ward off the evil spirit. Syotune gathered the people and
urged them not to pay tax or provide labour. As a result she
was arrested and deported to kismayu
During the Agiriama resistance against British colonialism in
1913, the Agiriama women played a very important role. The
resistance was greatly inspired by a woman called Mekatilili
wa Menza. She began mobilizing and administering oaths to
the Kaya elders so as to instill confidence and unity in the
community. Men took the Fisi oath while women took the
Mukushekushe oath. It was not until 1915, two years later
that the British managed to crush the resistance. Mekatilili
was arrested and deported to Kisii to make sure that she
would not inspire further resistance in the community.
Women’s involvement in political associations
Women in central Kenya played a critical role in the struggle
for independence. When Harry Thuku founded the East
African Association (EAA) in 1921, African women gave him a
lot of support.
In March 1922, Thuku was arrested and taken to the
Kingsway Police Station (now Central Police Station). As the
crowd swelled outside the police station, it began to demand
the release of Thuku. The crowd remained passive until Mary
Muthoni Nyanjiru, a Kikuyu woman who was a strong
follower of EAA, challenged the men to remove their trousers
and wear skirts if they could not free Thuku by force. The
impact of that challenge was instantaneous: the crowd is
reported to have surged towards the cells where Thuku was
being held.
Fearing that the crowd would free Thuku, the colonial police
opened fire. Mary Nyanjiru was one of the unarmed victims
of the brutal slaughter unleashed by the colonial police.
(Ngugi and micere mugo, The trial of Dedan kimathi)
In 1924, some of the former members of the EAA, which had
been banned in 1922, founded the Kikuyu Central
Association in Fort Hall (now Murang’a). Since the
association required financial and moral support from as
many members as possible, it began to enlist the support of
women.
Nevertheless, it was the issue of female circumcision that
drew the Agikuyu women into more political activity from
the late 1920s. Most of these women identified with the issue
of female circumcision, as there was an attempt by the
Protestant missionaries to ban it. This was seen as a plot to
undermine the integrity of the Agikuyu woman. As a result,
many women and their husbands abandoned the mission
churches. They also withdrew their children from the
mission schools. (Charity waciuma 1969)
Women therefore contributed to the establishment of
independent churches and schools, especially in central
Kenya. It should be noted that even in Nyanza and in eastern
Kenya, women constituted the majority of the members of
independent churches. For instance, the Legio Maria sect was
cofounded by a woman in Western Kenya, Aoko, who claimed
that she had received a divine calling.
The independence movement was in itself an act of protest,
not only against the mission churches, but also the entire
colonial order. In central Kenya, women composed and sang
songs and dances that ridiculed colonial chiefs and other
agents of the colonial system. One of the most notorious
songs and dances that despised the colonial order during the
female circumcision controversy was called muthirigu.
By the 1930s, some Agikuyu women felt that KCA was not
recognizing their role in the association. Consequently, a
number of women formed an association exclusively for
women that worked closely with KCA. This was called the
Mumbi Central Association.
It is worth noting that although men dominated the senior
positions in KAU the party enjoyed the support of many
women nationalists. One of these was Sarah Sarai, mama
Nyaroka who was detained in 1952 due to her participation
in the nationalist activities in the Ziwani African location in
Nairobi. (Wambui Otieno, style magazine)
The role of women in the Man Mau movement
Although most studies on the Mau Mau uprising do not
emphasize the participation of women in the movement,
recent research has proved that both women and children
played a significant role in the movement. Women bore the
brunt of colonial brutality. sometimes even more painfully
than men. This explains why they did not hesitate to
participate in the struggle for freedom. ( Majorie 1986)
Even before the onset of the Mau Mau uprising, women
especially in central Kenya were fed up with communal
labour, which involved constructing access roads and
terraces. In the absence of most men in the reserves, the
colonial chiefs mobilized women and children to provide
such labour. Colonial soldiers also forced African women
collect water and firewood for them. All this made the African
women resentful. When the Mau mau uprising started,
African women became actively involved in every aspect of
the struggle.
They participated in armed resistance against the British.
Some of them proved to be better soldiers than many men
and were given senior ranks due to their bravery and
distinguished service.
Examples of such women warriors include Marshal Muthoni
from Nyeri, Nduta wa Kore, Elizabeth Gachika and Wambui
Wagarama.
Women from the Agikuyu, Aembu and Ameru communities
joined the fighters in the forests. Their main role was to
organize and coordinate the rural networks as they sought
ways to supply the provisions needed by the fighters. (Sam
Kahiga, Dedan Kimathi: The Real story.1990)
Women participated in supplying the liberation fighters with
provisions such as food, medicine, guns, ammunition,
clothing and shoes. They were able to perform these roles as
the colonial police did not at first expect women and children
to be that daring. Elderly women were particularly useful.
They usually hid some of the supplies, e.g. guns and
ammunition, in the loins, as the African colonial police would
be too embarrassed to force such elders to strip naked, since
this was taboo in most African communities.
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Women also acted as spies for the Mau Mau movement in
Nairobi and in other urban centres, and also in the rural
areas. Some women befriended the home guards and, by so
doing, gathered useful information about the colonial forces,
e.g. their strategies and who their spies were. This
information would then be passed on to the Mau Mau
fighters. Women composed songs to mobilize support for the
Mau Mau and also to ridicule the home guards and other
colonial agents. The Mau Mau songs were effective in
inspiring the warriors fight even more valiantly. (kinyatti
1980)
Women played a critical role in mobilizing men and women
to join the liberation movement. They used different methods
to garner support, including ridiculing those men who
appeared hesitant to join the movement. Many men were
convinced by their wives to join the movement.
Women participated in the oathing ceremonies, some acting
as the chief oathing administrators. The oath bound the
members to secrecy. They swore to use all means necessary
to evict the Europeans from the country.
Women were subjected to forced labour, rape and physical
torture by the colonial
agents who attempted to force them to release vital
information about the fighters. Most women refused to
betray the Mau Mau fighters despite the inhuman treatment
they received. (Muthoni Likimani’s Passbook Number F.47927
,1985).
In ngugi’s A grain of wheat, (1986) women are also
represented as an object of man’s desire both as wives and as
girlfriends.
Over 8,000 women from the Agikuyu, Aembu and Ameru
communities were detained at Kamiti due to their active
participation in the Mau Mau liberation struggle. A special
facility was set up for such women at the prison. Other
women were put in concentration camps.
Many others lived in villages encircled with barbed wire and
ditches, especially in Kikuyuland. They had to endure dawnto-dusk curfews and starvation. The colonial forces closely
monitored them so as to prevent them from giving assistance
to the liberation movement.
By the time the State of Emergency was lifted in 1956, out of
the 27,841 Agikuyu, Aembu and Ameru detainees in
concentration camps, 3,103 were women.
Table 5.1: Women admitted to prisons, 1952-1958.
A number of women were recognized and given prominent
positions in Kenya, especially after the Mau Mau uprising.
Jemimah Gechaga, for instance, was nominated to the LegCo,
thereby becoming the first woman in Kenya to enter the
colonial law-making institution. In 1960, another woman,
Priscilla Abwao, was nominated to the LegCo and made
history as the only woman in the African delegation that took
part in the First Lancaster House Conference, London, in
1960.
At independence in 1963, women continued to play an
important role in the political development of the country.
Grace Onyango, for instance, became the first mayor of
Kisumu after independence.
Women participation in post independent Kenya
The independent state in Kenya emerged from a
nationalist movement that involved women in heroic roles.
Most of these women led struggles against colonial
domination, protested against colonial oppression, fed and
protected veterans during the fight for Uhuru, led segments
of the resistance armies against colonialism, and effectively
participated in the political negotiations leading to
independence. However, the colonial structure was never
dismantled and its extant forms of class and gender
discrimination and oppression persisted. At independence,
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta definitely de-racialized the structures of
the emerging state, but these were never gendered. On the
contrary, the state was further masculinized and ethnicized.
The incoming leadership was largely male and there were no
females in the first Cabinet that Kenyatta cobbled together.
Indeed, key figures in the Kenyatta government stated their
belief that women could never make good leaders.
The view that women could never be good leaders
was firmly held by most of the male leadership in Kenya,
whether within Kenyatta’s circle or not. This often found
expression in parliament among otherwise respectable
leaders such as Martin Shikuku. A firm believer in the
‘sanctity’ of polygamy, Shikuku often thought of women as
children who could only be represented by men. What was
ironic about Shikuku’s assumption was that the inner circle
of Kenyatta’s Cabinet thought of women and the non-Kikuyu
as people who were ill-equipped for leadership, a belief that
still commands serious influence among Kibaki’s loyalists.
For Kenyatta, as for Kibaki, leadership belonged to the house
of Mumbi, but in the first instance only to the sons of Mumbi.
The two regimes nurtured a very cynical attitude towards
women and other ethnicities in Kenya.
Valiant Kikuyu women leaders have not found it easy
to engage fully as political leaders in Central Kenya. The
example of Wambui Otieno and Prof. Wangari Maathai
illustrate this. A good number of them get frustrated into
quitting the campaigns at the level of party nominations. It is
no wonder that the declaration by Martha Karua of her
presidential ambition received such sexist reaction from a
large segment of Central Province leadership. Many of them
have congregated at well-choreographed public rallies to
denounce those who want to fragment the Kikuyu
community in the 2012 general election.
This, of course, is a thinly veiled attack on Martha
Karua. According to journalist Emeka- Mayaka Gekara, Karua
is seen by the rich businessmen and politicians ‘as
jeopardizing what Central Kenya elite call gucokia ruui
mukaro — returning the river to its course, or returning
power to the Agikuyu people’ in 2012.The experience of
Martha Karua mirrors that of many women. A comparison of
women political leadership in the Kenyan parliament since
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independence easily illustrates the weakness of Central
Province. Overall, women representation in parliamentary
leadership has been minimal, standing at 9.8 per cent at its
peak in the 10th parliament. Numbering 22 female members
of parliament, 16 were elected while 6 were nominated. The
majority of the women parliamentarians are from the Rift
Valley Province, with Central Province having only 2 women
while Nairobi has 3 female parliamentarians (two of whom
are of Kikuyu ethnicity). Historically, Western Kenya has had
the highest number of female representation in parliament as
is encapsulated in the stories of Grace Onyango (the first
elected female Member of Parliament) followed by
luminaries such as Dr Julia Ojiambo, Phoebe Asiyo and Grace
Ogot. The only other well known but uncelebrated heroine
was Philomena Chelagat Mutai from Rift Valley Province
The support of husbands and the opportunities
provided through related networks have been useful ladders
upon which to build an already sterling performance by these
female politicians. Thus, Nyiva Mwendwa got the support of
Kitili Mwendwa who, as this study indicates, agreed that she
was a better politician than he was. As it becomes clear in
this study, the situation where the female spouse ventured
into politics before the man differs from the pattern where
women often run for parliamentary seat only after their
husbands die. In the case of Dr Julia Ojiambo and Grace Ogot,
however, their political careers were built on a family of
accomplishments, with husbands who were themselves
solidly assured of the virtues of their spouses’ political
careers. This, at least, is the message one gets from Prof.
Bethwell A. Ogot’s reflections in his autobiography (Ogot,
2006).
There is, on the other hand, those women who have
struggled against numerous odds and with no concrete
supportive family structure. The story of Prof. Wangari
Maathai. Her achievements and ambitions were threatening
to the males around her. This too is the case with some of the
women discussed in this study, who point out how
threatened their husbands were at the prospects of their
becoming political leaders.
A CASE STUDY OF A FEW WOMEN IN POST INDEPENDENT
POLITICAL STRUGGLES
Martha Wangari Karua was born in Kirinyaga
County, Central Province. She was first elected as a Member
of Parliament for Gichugu constituency in the 1992 multiparty general election with the Democratic Party (DP) ticket.
Between 1981 and 1987, she worked as a Magistrate, and
was in charge of Makadara Law Courts from 1984 to 1985,
and Kibera Law Courts from 1986 to 1987 when she left to
start her own law firm, which she operated till 1992. While in
practice, Karua represented many pro bono cases, notable
among them the treason trial of Koigi Wamwere and the late
Mirugi Kariuki. She immensely contributed to the
development of family law and especially the distribution of
matrimonial property and constitutional and administrative
law. Martha Karua was a member of the opposition political
movement that successfully agitated for re-introduction of
multi-party democracy in Kenya in the early 1990s. She
joined Kenneth Matiba’s Ford-Asili party but lost the party
nomination ticket to the wealthy and infl uential former Head
of Public Service, Geoffrey Kareithi. She was then offered a
ticket and support by the Democratic Party (DP) elders who
wanted a clean break from the Kareithi-Nahashon Njuno
rivalry in Gichugu constituency.
Karua won the 1992 general election to become the
MP for Gichugu constituency and the first woman lawyer to
be popularly elected to parliament. She was also appointed as
the party’s legal affairs secretary between 1992 and 1997.
Martha Karua has remained a prominent national politician
for almost two decades.
Between 2003 and 2005, she served as Minister for
Water and Resources Management and Development, and
was behind the implementation of the Water Act 2002, which
then accelerated the pace of water reforms and service
provision. From 2005 to 2009 she served as the Minister for
Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs, from
which she resigned on 6 April 2009 citing frustrations in
discharging her duties. In early 2008, Martha Karua headed
the government’s team in negotiations with the ODM
regarding the political dispute that resulted from the 2007
election. She was later endorsed as the national chairperson
of the NARC-Kenya political party on 15 November 2008.
After her endorsement, she immediately declared she would
be running for the presidency in the 2012 elections. Her work
as a human rights advocate has been recognized through
several awards. In 1991, she was recognized by Human
Rights Watch as a human rights monitor. In December 1995,
she was awarded by the Federation of Kenya Women
Lawyers (FIDA) for advancing the course of women. In 1999,
the Kenya Section of the International Commission of Jurists
awarded her the 1999 Kenya Jurist of the Year Award and in
the same year, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) awarded her
the Legal Practitioners Due Diligence Award.
Phoebe Asiyo is one of the re-known Kenyan political
pioneers and outspoken advocates in the fight for women’s
rights for more than two decades. She was nominated to
parliament in 1992 as one of six other women after
involvement in Kenya’s campaign for multi-party democracy.
She has also acted as Chair of Kenya Women’s Political
Caucus and has been a Commissioner in the Constitution of
Kenya Review Commission. Phoebe Asiyo was appointed
UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador in 1998. She has been a
strong advocate in highlighting the status of women in Africa
in all walks of life and the various forms of oppression they
are subjected to, from domestic violence, rape and female
genital mutilation, to forced/early marriage, denial of
educational opportunities, and denial of property and
economic rights.
Grace Emily Akinyi Ogot, one of East Africa’s bestknown authors, also became an important political figure in
modern Kenya and has earned a distinctive position in
Kenya’s literary and political history. She trained as a nurse
in both Uganda and England. Several years working as a
nursing sister and midwifery tutor at Maseno Hospital, and
later at the Student Health Service at Makerere University
College provided her with experience in a number of
different careers. She worked as a script writer and
broadcaster for the BBC Overseas Service (later having her
own popular weekly radio programme in Dholuo), as a
Community Development Officer in Kisumu, and as a Public
Relations Officer for Air India.
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In recognition of her blossoming literary career, she was
named a delegate to the General Assembly of the United
Nations in 1975, and was a member of the Kenya delegation
to UNESCO in 1976. President Daniel arap Moi nominated her
to the Kenya parliament in 1985 and Assistant Minister for
Culture. In 1988, she was elected to parliament in her
husband’s home in Gem and was reappointed to her position
as Assistant Minister.
The 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate, Prof. Wangari
Maathai, is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, a
women-driven grassroots reforestation and sustainable
development movement that has planted more than 40
million trees. Some 60,000 women and 1,500 men manage
Green Belt’s over 3,000 tree nurseries. Prof. Maathai ran for
the presidency in 1997 but lost. She also failed to capture the
Tetu parliamentary seat. Later in 2002, she was elected as
Member of Parliament for Tetu constituency and served as
Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources in
the Government of President Mwai Kibaki from 2003 to
2005. A Biologist, Wangari Maathai was the first Kenyan
woman to earn a PhD, and to teach and chair a department at
the University of Nairobi. An environmental and
sociopolitical activist, her numerous awards include the
Goldman Environmental Prize, the Africa Prize for
Leadership and the UNEP/Eyes on the Environment Award.
Prof. Maathai is a co-founder of The Nobel Women’s
Initiative, whose goal is to support women’s rights around
the world. Her autobiography, Unbowed: One Woman’s Story,
was released in 2006. She has played a pivotal role in Kenya’s
politics and has without doubt been a role model and mentor
for many Kenyan women aspiring for leadership.
Charity Kaluki Ngilu was born in Mbooni, Makueni
County. She worked as a secretary in Central Bank of Kenya
before venturing into business. During the multi-party
general elections of 1992, Charity Ngilu pulled off a big
surprise by capturing the Kitui Central constituency seat on
the Democratic Party (DP) ticket. Later in the 1997 elections,
she pulled even a bigger surprise by running for the
presidency where, along with Wangari Maathai, they became
the first ever female presidential candidates in Kenya. Charity
Ngilu then represented the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
and she finished fifth. Later, she joined the National Party of
Kenya, which became one of the major partners in the
formation of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) that
formed the government between 2003 and 2007. She was
appointed Minister of Health, and was also NARC
chairperson. However, she was left stranded after one of the
NARC partners, the Liberal Democratic Party (ODM) led by
Raila Odinga, left the coalition after the defeat of the
government-sponsored draft constitution during the 2005
referendum. While most of the remaining NARC members
founded the new NARC-Kenya party, Charity Ngilu held on to
her NAK party. It was with the strength of her NAK party that
she joined the Orange Democratic Movement in 2007 and
was appointed Minister of Water and Irrigation in April 2008
after the Coalition Government was formed between the
ODM and PNU.
Other women not profiled here but who also played an
equally significant role in shaping women’s political
leadership include Margaret Kenyatta, Dr Eddah Gachukia,
Chelagat Mutai, Jael Mbogo, Grace Onyango, among others.
CONCLUSION
The women who belonged to the Mau Mau were
strong and continued to work for the freedom of Kenya no
matter what the odds were against them. Although the Mau
Mau movement was crushed a few years before
independence, these women accomplished a lot for the
freedom of Kenya.
The women sexual status prevent their visibility in
the war and in the political arena while the role of men are
valorized.
In most writings women participation in the war and in the
political arena is biased. In Keneth watene’s play Dedan
Kimathi(1974) he only mention two women that is lucia and
wahu and refers to the rest generally as women.
Kirinyaga county has a low profile of women participation in
post colonial politics due to gender imbalance in the political
arena of the County.
Much of the good work done by women political
leaders does not get to the public domain. In the 9th
Parliament, for example, the only women perceived by the
public to be active were those with ministerial positions,
namely Charity Ngilu, Martha Karua and Jebii Kilimo (for the
short time she served as Minister). Beth Mugo, as an
Assistant Minister in the education docket, also attracted
some coverage. Besides Njoki Ndung’u, who gained a lot of
publicity due to the Sexual Offences Bill that she championed,
the other women were basically unknown to the public.
Esther Keino had drawn media attention because she never
gave a maiden speech in parliament. women have passion for
and had focused on, there is an indication that if there was a
critical mass of women in political leadership and women
who support the cause of gender equity, equality and justice,
then much more can be achieved towards development that
takes on board gender issues.
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