By Cliffin Nyerere
- The insensitive reactions toward social media posts about femicide portray inhumanity, but they also expose a bitter heterosexual male demographic.
- It is important that boys and girls interact wholly to create an understanding of each other. And equally at the academic level to create equity between both genders.
- As a society, we need to take a step back and criticize the generally shallow nature of dating to heal a society that drowns in unresolved trauma and vanity.
This year’s Valentine’s Day followed a dark time in Kenyan history. Is it viable to celebrate the month of love amidst the socio-economic chaos and femicide cries looming in the air?
February 14 is meant to highlight the magic of love between couples of all genders and social backgrounds but recent news has only given us reasons to question the very concept.
How can we talk about love when the general relationship between the various genders exposes faults in the foundation of human relationships?
Various writers and journalists have used their skills and platforms to address femicide, airing out the hard facts amidst conflicting and controversial reactions to the injustice.
However, few have tried to dig deep for the underlying factors that breed animosity between Kenyan men and women.
Neetu et al., (2021) state that gender-based violence has been prevalent in Kenya, considering the nation’s under-developed socio-political dynamic.
Also, the gender wars have only been getting worse, conveying a disconnect amongst the collective genders that make up the Kenyan population.
So, why would people be so ignorant and inconsiderate about such inhumanities and dysfunction? And what are the factors contributing to the perpetual decadence of Kenyan society?
The insensitive reactions toward social media posts about femicide portray inhumanity, but they also expose a bitter heterosexual male demographic.
Victim blaming is wrong, that goes without saying, but why would they capitulate to such vile ideologies?
According to Kimeu (The Guardian), one of the stories that made the tabloids was about Starlet Wahu who got stabbed by a member of a criminal gang that targeted women through dating sites; it made some heterosexual men blame the woman and other victims for their “materialism and carelessness”.
Kenya is widely conservative, whereby tradition applies in most parts of the nation when it comes to relationships.
Unlike the old times, it has become harder for one gender to assume the role of provider, calling for adaptation.
According to The Federation of Kenya Employers, youth (15-34) make up 35% of the population but 67% in terms of unemployment.
In first-world nations, people are exposed to independence from a tender age to shake off dependency (Lin 2012, Worldbank.org), which is one of the many failures of the previous education system discussed below.
For young heterosexual men, it has become harder to mate as they struggle amidst growing unemployment, competing against older generations that struggle to create opportunities inadvertently or due to corruption.
The odds are stacked against younger generations who chose bitterness over empathy.
Also, inadequate social media literacy makes it harder to bridge the gap between heterosexual men and women.
For a system to work effectively, it has to be implemented accordingly.
According to Njeru (2023, Citizen digital), despite significant positive use of social media in Kenya, the medium still facilitates the propagation of extreme beliefs while hindering meaningful discussions.
Information flux in the hands of the demographic with poor/limited literacy translates into imminent chaos, as some people’s moral compass malfunctions while scrolling through opinions/information that blur the line between credible and false, incendiary information.
Social media also closes the gap between developed nations and developing nations but it doesn’t change the wide socio-economic rift.
According to Bolingo (2023, The Standard), economic pressure from women has even forced some men to consider dating an economic burden, more so, due to how social media imparts and reinforces instant gratification.
Men also play a part in the perversion of dating when they aim for sexual gratification primarily.
Another issue is the former education system, which is a shared experience for most adults and a major contributing factor to the general gender conditioning.
The 8-4-4 system separated students based on sex as they entered puberty and reconnected them at an average age of 18, when responsibilities started looming.
At these gender specific schools, mostly void of proper gender education, men were exposed to toxic masculinity more and ignorant ideologies about women.
On the other hand, women were kept oblivious to the masculine experience.
According to Bigler et al., (Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development), schools create the rift between boys and girls through different opportunities and feedback, making children internalize gender stereotypes.
It is important that boys and girls interact wholly to create an understanding of each other. And equally at the academic level to create equity between both genders.
At that phase, boys would be able to understand the struggles of being a woman through actively interacting with them. On the other hand, girls are able to get a vivid idea of the process a man goes through as they grow into adults.
However, what we have is generations of men and women that left high school oblivious of the “other gender”, a term used caustically to describe the opposite gender.
Religion exacerbates the issue by implying that pre-marital male-female interactions are unholy, thus contributing further to the disconnect and delaying healthy sex education.
Fathers are conditioned to deny their daughters mandatory affection, whereas mothers are restricted in their interaction with their sons.
Parents aren’t perverts, it has to be the people enforcing such laws. Thus, unresolved daddy and mommy issues that replace companionship with compensation, which can take on vindictive forms.
Sensitizing people to femicide and gender-based violence has to start with reforming society from the roots.
Feminine and masculine characteristics can only be shared through consistent and safe interactions, helping men to be more in tune with their feminine, emotional side while exposing women to the masculine experience to eradicate objectification and degradation at both ends of the gender spectrum.
An ideal society is one where women humanize men, making them more than just work horses for their needs.
On the other hand, men are supposed to use their masculinity to enhance women’s social experience.
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As a society, we need to take a step back and criticize the generally shallow nature of dating to heal a society that drowns in unresolved trauma and vanity.
Great work