Monica L. Udvardy

Theorizing past and present women's organizations in Kenya

Abstract Womens groups are widespread in Kenya today and recognized as important fora for development. Yet scholars are divided on the issue of whether they challenge existing gender relations, or whether they are limited to providing for the survival needs of rural women. ‘Development’ includes enabling popular empowerment, yet I argue that these voluntary associations do so for women to a limited extent only. Molyneuxs (1985) theoretical distinction between ‘strategic’ and ‘practical’ gender interests is applied to a comparison of todays womens groups with precolonial and colonial indigenous womens organizations. Past womens collectives are discussed for the Barabaig, Gikuyu and Giriama, followed by a comparison with todays womens organizations. The extent to which Kenyan womens groups became involved in three recent nationally renowned political events involving women are also described. These are: 1. (a)the case of S.M. Otienos burial; 2. (b) the outspoken opposition of Wangari Maathai, leader of Kenyas Green Belt Movement, to government plans; and 3. (c) the 1992 strike and actions of Gikuyu mothers to the political detention of their sons. Kenyan women in patrilineal societies of the past are shown to have been better equipped through their indigenous womens organizations to protect the interests common to their gender than they are today. This is due to the continuous penetration by Westerners and Kenyans alike, including development workers, or a public/private paradigm from the West onto extant gender relations. Recommendations are made for incorporating features of these past organizations into modern womens groups.

The fertility of the post-fertile: Concepts of gender, aging and reproductive health among the Giriama of Kenya

Among the Giriama of Kenya, post-menopausal women are custodians of the central, ritual objects of a female cult that is believed to enable reproductive health. By asking why cult custodians must be women and must be post-menopausal, this paper explores cultural constructions of gender, aging, health, and power. The solution to the paradox of how post-fertile women enable fertility illustrates the salience of ethnomedical beliefs for informing explorations into conceptions of gender and the life course. It can also shed light upon variations in involvement of women and men as ritual specialists in non-western societies.