Kenya

5 ways Kenya can #EmbraceEquity

The present decade has witnessed a visible backlash against gender equality and the women’s human rights agenda across continents – and Kenya is no exception. This backlash has immediate and long-term implications for women, men and individuals who identify as not sexually- or gender-conforming, and for the consolidation of democracy, social cohesion, and economic growth in any country.

Gender inequality undermines the hard-fought values of human rights, equality and freedom embedded in Kenya’s Constitution 2010 and in other national and international instruments that Kenya is a signatory to.

The LGBTQ+ community’s challenges in Kenya continue unabated against the backdrop of social exclusion based on sexual and gender identities. These challenges are increasingly seen as being interdependent and shaped by a multitude of different pressures that converge within the gender and development sector.

With this in mind, and for International Women’s Day 2023, here are five ways Kenya can better #EmbraceEquity.

1. Generating and managing knowledge

The research, co-creation and framing of gender issues can significantly help in understanding gender and patriarchal backlash. There is a need to work with different people and organisations to improve the understanding, nature and forms of this backlash.

Knowledge generation and management can strengthen interactions and debates about gender and patriarchal backlash, and find ways of countering this backlash in different contexts in Kenya. Various actors can draw on their past work and the existing knowledge of how to package, disseminate and add to the evidence of backlash where it is lacking. But we must understand how to communicate research findings without doing more harm. This can be done by properly positioning emerging gender equality issues to inform policy and programming.

2. Positioning policy

It is pivotal for all stakeholders to address the erosion of gender policies and agendas at the national and county levels away from egalitarian ideals. Efforts to change political, socio-economic, cultural, and religious norms along with power relations which prevent gender equality should go together with efforts to identify, disrupt, adjust or dismantle policies, structures and systems which reinforce negative norms and stereotypes that strengthen gender backlash.

Policies should be framed to engage different groups of men and boys in overcoming gender inequality. It should also help them overcome and address their own gender-related vulnerabilities and oppression. This can bring forth a major shift in debates about the ‘boy child’ or generalised ideas about ‘men in crisis’, thus guarding against victim blaming and the impression that women empowerment is being advanced at the expense of men and boys.

3. Transforming attitudes and social norms

Enabling an environment to change attitudes and social norms needs to be informed by contexts. Decision-makers should put in place efforts to support communities in confronting stereotypes, attitudes, values and structures that perpetuate social exclusion and promote gender backlash. This can be achieved by consolidating and building upon knowledge and practices that inspire action among different groups in addressing social justice issues. Ultimately, this requires structural and systemic transformations towards favourable social norms, attitudes and behaviours at institutional, community and individual levels.

4. Promoting accountability

There must be more work done with men through gender transformative approaches to address negative social norms. This should also extend to encouraging dialogue between male activists to support Women’s Rights Organisations (WROs) on accountability with regards to development and gender equality agenda. This is because a lot of men are experiencing hesitancy leading to shifting roles toward gender equality. This is particularly important in the socio-cultural space between what used to be and what is currently expected in the human rights space.

Working with men and boys for gender equality is crucial. A comprehensive engagement process is needed to ensure that women are not targeted or ostracised by men in the belief that measures to address entrenched gender inequality are unfair and a form of ‘reverse discrimination’. Working with men and boys to address underlying social norms and help them become more gender-equitable and address their own gender-related vulnerabilities will help to counter patriarchal backlash on a large scale.

5. Building advocacy and movements

Kenya is a signatory to many international treaties, conventions and instruments on gender equality and human rights. There is a need for like-minded partners and stakeholders in the field of gender justice, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Women’s Rights Organizations, feminists, and male allies to forge strong alliances to advocate for the fulfilment of the commitments made by the government

CSOs and Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) have acted as catalysts and progress leaders in legislative and policy developments over the years. Advocates for Social Change Kenya (ADSOCK) alongside organisations such as the Wangu Kanja Foundation (WKF), Center for Rights Awareness and Education (CREAW), African Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET), Collaborative Center for Gender and Development (CCGD), Gender Violence Recovery Center (GVRC) among others, have been in the forefront in advocating and championing for gender equality including addressing the rights of survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Kenya.

Looking ahead

It is critical for all actors in every sphere of society to openly condemn all forms of gender inequalities. They can do this by providing the impetus to confront the environments where social exclusion and discrimination are rationalised, justified, internalised, normalised, and allowed to thrive. An equal world where everyone’s rights are respected, protected, preserved and promoted is possible. We must #EmbraceEquity!

Advocates for Social Change are tackling backlash in Kenya. Here’s how

Advocates for Social Change – Kenya (ADSOCK) see victim blaming and ‘what-about-ism’ (‘but what about men and boys?’) around sexual and gender-based violence gaining ground in the country. The organisation’s latest resource book ‘Paradigm Shift: Countering Backlash Reclaiming Gender Justice‘ provides practical ways individuals and organisations can counter this backlash.

Phil E. Otieno, Executive Director of ADOSCK, shares some reflections from their work on this.

Developing methods and knowledge

At ADSOCK we engage with a range of partners and actors in the field of gender, identifying what drives patriarchal backlash. We have been able to document how male supremacist ideologies are installed and flourish in combination with other oppressive ideologies through our capacity building workshops, and we have seen how male resentment is mobilised within diverse contexts in Kenya.

Our activities are complemented by knowledge strengthening for different audiences, by designing and delivering training workshops and modules, developing and sharing Social Behaviour Change and Communication Materials (posters, stickers, t-shirts), and the ‘Paradigm Shift: Countering Backlash Reclaiming Gender Justice’ resource book.  This has been important in supporting our trainers and audience (a range of local and national gender justice actors) in understanding forms of gender backlash and by providing them with real examples of promising interventions to counter patriarchal backlash.

The resource book is one of the best, because it has all the materials that a trainer needs for proper grounding on patriarchal backlash and other elements of gender inequality

Anne, ADSOCK Trainer

We include 17 modules which provide step-by-step guidelines and practical resources that help the user in understanding a particular module and how to apply the information acquired. Feedback from practitioners and those using the resource book (particularly men) have shown that module three – ‘Roadmap to male allyship’ – and module 11 – ‘Understanding and Countering Patriarchal Backlash’ – have been of most interest and use.

The resource book is empowering and is loaded with very insightful information on Backlash including the module on male allyship towards gender equality

Steve, Family Health Options Kenya (FHOK)

Open Debates

Since inception of the project, we have conducted four workshops that brought together a diverse range of stakeholders for challenging and reflective debates and learning. They have included; women’s rights organisations, civil society organisations, university students, member of the LGBTIQ+ community, Kenya Police Service, persons with disabilities, media personalities, religious and cultural leaders, county leadership among others. The trainings helped to contextualise situations and how we internalise contested ideas.

In the workshops, a vast majority of men felt that gender equality is a ‘Western phenomenon’ (non-African) and a system aimed at destroying the so-called ‘African’ family. We also found that there is discomfort in some language, with many people feeling gender equality should be anchored in Pan-Africanism for it to be accepted. A vast majority of men expressed that ‘men are in crisis because of the feminisation of society’.

Another common trope in patriarchal backlash is ‘What-about-ism’ and victim blaming regarding sexual and gender-based violence, which is slowly but surely gaining ground in Kenya. Interestingly, we found that conversations about the ‘boy-child’ being ‘left behind’ is advanced by both men and women. This has led to a stereotyping and labelling of human rights defenders and feminists as ‘angry individuals’.

We believe that ADSOCK’s Resource Book will help people by providing an understanding of the importance of gender equality, accountability towards social justice (including identifying how patriarchal backlash happens). It also provides knowledge on how gender backlash is manifested both in online and offline spaces, critical factors contributing to the success and failures of different actors in their work on gender equality, as well as methods and approaches for challenging the status quo.

Curbing Erosion of Gender Equality and Women’s Rights

There is a need to document and analyse how backlash mobilises forms of male resentment across different contexts in Kenya; how can we tackle restrictive masculinities that may hinder men’s engagement in gender equality initiatives? A comprehensive male-engagement process is needed to ensure women are not targeted or ostracised by men’s organisations who believe that measures to address entrenched gender inequality are unfair and a form of ‘reverse discrimination’. Engaging with men and boys in the promotion of gender equality is one in many strategies for tackling the ever-growing problems of inequality, injustice and oppression.

To sustain the campaigns on gender equality, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) need support with resource mobilisation and the development of advocacy and awareness messages. CSOs also need support in building knowledge and action towards political mobilisation, along with allyship in movement and partnership building for gender and social justice. This is incredibly important in political spaces. Shifting norms concerning women’s leadership, leading towards a more transformative role for women’s collective agency – in both formal and informal settings – which both depends on and determines their individual agency. It also calls for men’s reflective allyship and support without mansplaining, patriarchal protectionism or ‘bro-option’.