Response to a comment...

My good friend Jill from Minneapolis who I have had numerous Gender Studies classes with made a comment on my last post:
what do you mean more patriarchal? why do you think that is? is the form of patriarchy you are describing "universal" and monolithic in kenya and/or does it have anything to do with the particular social location of the women you've observed? please elaborate.

Jill,
Yay for some critical questions...

These issues are by no means black and white, and it is hard for me to "unpack my baggage," as we say, of being a white Westerner in the global south... My point of view is sorely biased and I'm still very new here... I wonder what I'll say on this topic in a few months...

I would say right now that things are more patriarchal in that it is easier to point out here rather than in the US, in addition to very strict gender roles here. For instance, my host mom owns a salon. She works from about 8am to 7pm, then comes home, cooks a huge huge dinner until it is served at 9pm, then cleans up and goes to bed. The entire time, my host dad watches TV and is served tea by the children, etc. The women definitely work more and serve the men. The men are not involved in the rearing of children at all... This is what I see in my family, and what I hear from the other students of their families. We were told that we would see that, and that it had infuriated students in the past, which is why they warned us.
I don't think it is necessarily monolithic or all encompassing. It may be different in very high-class families, although only one or two of us are staying with families like that. Those families are more like American families, where there is clear inequality but not the way there is here. Those families are about 5% of the population but hold about 50% of the wealth (cited to us by a teacher, I don't know the actual source so be wary of stats), and they are often American or British-educated. These families more resemble American families, where the men do some housework and some child-rearing, although they earn more money and are typically considered the head of the household.

We were also told that in the rural areas, where we will do our internships, the gender roles will be even more pronounced. For instance, in many homes, the women and children must sit on the floor while the men sit on the chairs and couches. A few students have been in Kenya all summer or have been in this region before, and have echoed that sentiment.

Having only been here for a couple weeks, my ideas about why this is may be incorrect: It has something to do with tribal tradition, first of all. We have started learning about pre-colonial history, and most of the tribes had very strict gender roles, particularly that the women had children yearly if physically capable, and stayed home to take care of the children and the home. The tribal leaders were/are typically the oldest men, although the women did have a say in things. So tribal/ethnic groups are VERY important here, actually more important than a national Kenyan identity (this causes a lot of problems for Kenya and is a result of colonial rule and post-independence leadership, but more on that another day).

Of course, then colonial rule came on about and introduced Christianity. In most areas of Kenya, Christianity is very important (on the coast there are some Muslims as a result of Arab trade routes in that area). Christianity here is also used as a justification for the strict gender roles. This is pure speculation, but colonial rule may have also reinforced gender roles as well.

This presents an interesting situation for American students, especially for the two of us that are majoring in Gender, Women, and Sexuality studies. We are not here to impose Western feminism, by any means. BUT, we have to draw boundaries about what we will and will not do. For instance, the program specifies that we should not be expected to serve our host-fathers or stay within the home all day; we are to be part of this culture (as much as possible) while maintaining our Western values, especially surrounding the importance of education.
Also interestingly, when I told my host-mom, Janet, about my major, she was enthusiastic about the value of it. She said that she believed women were one of the most oppressed and marginalized populations in the entire world.

The thing is though, with my host-mom, it's not an issue of pity. She is inspirationally hard-working. She owns a business and raises numerous children to be as industrious as her and to value school and their God. She works as much as the straight-A college students do. I haven't breached the topic of her point of view of gender differences; we're not that close yet.

Again, I look forward to being more cultually competent and hopefully to have some of my baggage unpacked... I also look forward to visiting my friends' homestays to see how they live, what their values are, etc. The rural experience should add to it as well.