discouragement

I was actually just starting to feel really good about being here, and going to both this poetry night and the Anthropology Symposium. But both turned out to be a little different than I had expected. This is going to be a really long post.

Last night we went to the poetry event at school. It was called “Empowering Women” and was put on by the Literature Department to talk about women’s struggles in this society and their strength. The poets were mostly women. There were two men. The poets would perform a few poems, then break and have a discussion about women in Kenya and what their roles are and whether they are oppressed or not. Most of the audience was male, and the two men sitting to my left happened to be pretty obnoxious. Any time a poet talked about being raped or beaten or oppressed by men, most of the audience laughed and cheered. Also, every time a woman came on stage who the men in the room thought were attractive, they whistled. It was sickening. I could not believe that this entire room of people was laughing when a woman cried in her poem because of her husband abusing her. There was almost constant laughter in the room and I didn’t hear one comical poem. I couldn’t believe it. Why did these men come to this event?
During one of the discussions I even spoke out to the crowd, which is unlike me, especially in situations where I am uncomfortable, but I couldn’t take it. The facilitator of conversation (a man) was asking about a woman’s role and he got to the point where he asked “so a man is supposed to wash the dishes?” And I said to the room “If they are both eating off of the dishes, they can both wash the dishes.” The woman a few rows ahead of me thanked me, while most of the men in the room seemed pretty mad I had said that. I whispered to Whitney that we might need body guards on our way out.
Ugh, what a frustrating time. Some of the poems were beautiful though, and the women were beautiful, most of them dressed in traditional Kenyan dress. It was so hard though because I wanted to leave in disgust of all the men around me, but I also wanted to stay to hear more of the women’s poems. There were one or two men in the crowd though, who said positive things towards women and how women were not treated fairly. Hopefully I can meet those men sometime while I am here.
Speaking of men, I am getting really tired of being blatantly stared down and asked questions about my relationship status. I have started going along with some men who ask me questions, rather than spend the energy correcting them. For example, while I was waiting for the matatu the other day, this older man started asking me if I was married, if I had kids, where I was from, what I was doing here. I ended up being from Canada, with a husband and two children. When I told him I was at the bus stop waiting for my friend (who happened to be my host mother), he said with a grin, “oooh I see, you have husband AND friend.” Ugh.
I was also awakened last night by some loud banging noises and then a woman screaming an ear piercing scream at the top of her lungs. Then more banging, mens voices, whimpering from the woman, more banging and silence. It was really scary and I had a lot of trouble sleeping after that, jumping at every noise. It seemed to sum up the night though and really make concrete the things the women poets wrote about.

Today we went to an Anthropology Symposium on Gender and Sexuality. There were a number of presentations. One of them was called “Sexual Freedom: Outward Expressions of Masculinity and Femininity.” The presenter of this spent almost his entire 30 minutes describing people who do not stay within gender norms, such as men who walk “femininely” at which point he would imitate that walk and the crowd (of about 500) would erupt in laughter. He also talked about women who wear men’s pants and shoes and who buy property and drive themselves around, making faces of disgust. And then there were those parents in Britain who actually celebrate their sons getting married to men, and then THAT bishop in America who wants to be married to a man. The entire time this man was talking about this the crowd was laughing and I was wondering what this had to do with sexual freedom. This is not freedom, this is confining people to things they cannot do because it is of the opposite gender. It made me cry at one point and made me want to run out of the room, the school, the country screaming. Sometimes I wish the world really was map-sized so that I could step out for a few minutes…or days. So I am feeling pretty exhausted and emotionally drained, after 8 hours of this. I can’t believe the collective immaturity of the people at a highly acclaimed academic institution. It makes me feel like I am 40 years back in time. Maybe this is my learning experience of things I was privileged enough to miss by being born in the late 80’s.
There was also a really interesting presentation of the results of the first ever MSM study done in Kenya. Unfortunately it was hard to follow because the crowd of people wouldn’t shut up and stop laughing at every word that was somewhat sexual or had to do with homosexuality. It was like being in a room full of 6-10 year olds. One interesting statistic from that was that 75% of MSM reported “always” using a condom. I found that amazing. Also, 57% had taken an HIV test, 23% in the last three months. I was very impressed with those numbers, especially after learning about significantly lower statistics among U.S. citizens, who have arguably more access to these things.
It is good that the school is having these forums for discussion. It's almost like they want to discuss it and know they should, but they individually and as a community are not ready to yet. It's the small steps that get you there though, I guess.