Women are more likely to get sexually harassed in the workplace given that we are already viewed as sexual objects. We are sexualized at every instance. If a woman pecks you on the cheek, she wants you. If she smiles at you, she wants you. If she talks to you, she wants you. If she glances your way, she wants you. If she wears red, she wants you, if she’s in a skirt she wants you. You must wonder how women get up and get shit done when everyone wants you to want them, or believes you want them. They say millennials are the ME ME ME generation. Actually men are the ME sex. Literally everything that has nothing to do with you is about you. How do you even manage to function?
I remember when my brother was sixteen and when asked why he wasn’t performing well in school, he mentioned that, now that he was a man, he was suddenly overcome with the responsibility about of managing my parents businesses after they retire. My dad damn near fell off his seat laughing. They asked him where he got the idea and why he felt he was the only one shouldering that burden when he has an older sister (I was 21). He said that he knows that culturally it’s the males who carry on the family legacy. My mum replied, “We raised you like that because your sister and yourself will carry the family legacy equally.” He was taken aback. It came to me then that, sexual harassment, viewing women as objects and not worthy often has nothing to do with who raised you but the culture you were born in.
In Kenya, the culture against women is brutal. In Kenya, men think it’s a badge of honor to insult a woman. It’s a badge of honor to have done or said something brutal to a woman. Probably why we are such huge consumers of American Hip Hop what with the pervasive use of defamatory language against women.
We live in a country where people often say, “We are not ready for a female president” as if that’s the criteria for leadership. I guess being a woman still beats being tried at the ICC for human rights violations. In Kenya up until 2010 women didn’t have their own file at the office of immigration. They were either under their husband’s, father’s or brother’s. 2010, think about that. Where else does that happen? Where female participants can’t ran for elections because they will be ambushed and beaten to near an inch of their life? Oh wait… it has already happened.
It’s easy to sweep stuff like this away when it doesn’t affect you. Same way the anti gay individuals will not understand the need for free rights for all because we hetero people already do.
But, you know what gets me. The fact that the men know exactly what it’s like to lose their rights. To be looked down upon because of something you cannot change. To be labeled as less because of something that has no bearing on how well you learn. I’m talking to black men here.
I think if there ever existed an idiot, that would be the black man. Completely clueless, without priorities. When the whites continue to degrade black women, co-opt our dress and form. You cheer them on, you actually come up with the lyrics and are proud when you hear them sing it. You finally made it! The disconnect is so strange. Someone who went through the Rwanda Genocide would relate to someone in Syria right now. Different wars but with similar consequences for its people. The disturbing thing, you’ll find that the same person in Rwanda will be against Immigration for Refugees. That’s the disconnect I’m speaking of.
When I watch men in Kenya harass women I almost want to let out a hearty laugh and an angry cry. Today white men view you as lesser because of your skin color, they scoff when you talk about the black movement and interject with not all white people are… Like white people walk around with a good or bad tag. When you call for the need for a more open discussion on racism, police brutality,they tell you to stop complaining all the time and if you weren’t so lazy you’d be treated equally too. In some countries you can be killed for being black then they tell you that it wasn’t because you were black, it’s because you provoked the officer by being loud or appearing aggressive but because you are a black man you know coded language when you hear it. You didn’t act like a good black! When you can’t fund raise for your company but you can’t because your startup has no signs of stability which as you all know means ‘You don’t have a white person on your team, and you need to because you are in our turf’ Even when you can’t explain where the racism is you know it because, you do. Now flip that Coin.
When you are systematically expected to sleep with people to get ahead because you are female, and when you don’t act like a ‘good female’ and accept that men will be men, then you risk being fired or rail roaded at the Job. When you can’t run for elected office because people will beat you up for entering their tuff. When people constantly feel the need to show you your place. When you coin a female movement- Feminism and males come in with ‘not all men are…’ while literally there are no men walking around with tags that indicate if they are the good or bad men. When people continually say that feminists have daddy issues, are ugly and can’t find men. When you are raped and people actually ask what were you wearing, and what time you were out because of course, like the slave they still imagine you to be they want to tell you when you can be home, what you can wear, who to interact with. But I guess when you are trying to be palatable to white people it doesn’t matter. Palatable, Dedan Kimathi, Thomas Sankara, Samora Machel would roll in their graves
Do you get it now black men. While you have spent all this time freeing yourselves from physical slavery, you forgot the mental slavery. Where you want desperately want to find common ground with white men, you want so badly to assimilate such that you would sell your own just so you can all feel like brothers. Yeah, dark skin bitches are ugly, black women are whores, they are cheap. You wonder why every time the word Hoe,Thot or Rachet is mentioned you get a mental image of a black woman. Lol! In South Africa they are killing off the women, in Kenya we are maiming them, in DRC we are raping and maiming. In Nigeria, we are kidnapping them and raping them.
I guess when you are the lowest denominator in the world no one wants to associated with you. Remember how biracial people earlier on never wanted to interact with black people. I have a cousin who lives in Australia who won’t come back to Kenya, or speak to us lowly African relatives. Lol! As my grandma said, ‘ Ni sawa si kama kuna mtu ako na haja na yeye’ (it’s okay, it’s not like any of has any need to communicate with her). Sexual harassment, man I can’t tell you how bad it is. When you broker a deal and a Partner and that CEO starts whatsapping sexual material to you. You ignore it and chose not to reply. A day or two later, the guy doesn’t pick your calls or emails. Your boss asks you why the partnership hasn’t gone through. You take them aside and confide in them about the partner,thinking they’ll be sympathetic. Instead your boss says “Even though, you should have closed the deal” While they fully aware that for you to close the deal you’d probably have to prostitute yourself to this partner, so you lose respect for your boss, your job and your output declines until you decide I can’t do this shit anymore. So you quit. That’s just my story, but who cares feminists are ugly!