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The Politics of Sex: Some Strategies Employed by the Kenyan Power Elite to Handle A Normative-Existential Discrepancy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Audrey Wipper
Audrey Wipper*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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Extract

This paper examines some strategies employed by a power elite in dealing with the disjunction between official commitments and everyday practises. Data were gathered on women's protest in Kenya. It attacked the normative-existential discrepancy demanding that the political elites bring the institutional system and their private behaviour more into keeping with the beliefs they had professed in fighting colonialism and which are now enshrined in documents that lay the foundation for a democratic-egalitarian state. The male-dominated power elite, socialized in a traditional system that gives males prerogatives in the spheres of power, authority, and status, operating in a system of many demands and scarce resources, and not wanting to lose face with women who form a potentially powerful pressure group, are caught in a situation of cross pressures. The women, on the other hand, while also socialized in this traditional system, have been the proteges of colonial women and Western institutions and have internalized Western values about women's roles. Though their view of what their roles should be conforms to the power elites' ideal values, its response has been a far cry from these ideals. In addition to exploring the normative-existential discrepancy, this paper focuses on male, and in particular, female images of what the situation is and ought to be and some tactics used by each to attain their goals.

Material was collected in Kenya from 1964 to 1966. I returned in 1969 and collected more data. The data consist of interviews with women leaders, participation in women's activities, and various documents from writings of women leaders to letters-to-the-editor.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , December 1971 , pp. 463 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1971

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