#BreakTheBias, Chapter 1: "But what did she do?"
#BreakTheBias, Chapter 1: "But what did she do?"
Biases exist in the everyday. Sometimes we recognise them. Most times, though...
It was International Women’s Day yesterday. May still be in some parts of the world, depending on what time I put this up.
I was rather conflicted about uttering the phrase, “Happy International Women’s Day.” It felt a little presumptuous for me to assume it was happiness all around.
I’d like to go about this in three parts.
Part 1: A pandemic unto ourselves?
The following are snippets from the reporting of three incidents, all reported within 48 hours of yesterday, all via nation.africa.
One.
Mihang’o, Nairobi County: A Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldier was arrested on Sunday night in connection with the murder of his girlfriend, who is also a KDF soldier.
Police said the woman had visited the suspect and found another woman’s shoes at the door. A quarrel ensued when she inquired about the owner of the shoes. The suspect then “took a kitchen knife and stabbed the deceased on the rear right side of the neck.”
Two.
Langas, Uasin Gishu County: A KDF soldier was arrested on Sunday in connection with the defilement of a 12-year-old girl.
The girl had arrived home at around 7:30pm and told her worried mother that she was late “because she had been held hostage by a man who took advantage of her,” the DCI said in a report issued on Sunday.
Three.
Professor Wangari Maathai Road, Nairobi County: A disturbing viral clip of the female motorist, 32, being physically and sexually harassed by a gang of boda boda riders emerged online Monday, sparking public uproar.
The assault occurred last Friday at 5pm when the motorist hit a pedestrian, according to Nairobi Traffic Commandant Joshua Omukata.
The gang, which had now grown to more than a dozen, quickly caught up with her, forced her car door open and started pulling her out as she screamed for help. As this was happening, some of the men tried to undress her while others sexually assaulted her.
“Our attention has been drawn to a distasteful video circulating on social media of boda boda riders attacking a motorist after an alleged road traffic accident. The rowdy gang went ahead and stripped the lady off her clothes,” said the National Police Service in a post on their social media pages.
Again, all this, within a 48-hour window of International Women’s Day 2022.
As conversation around the third incident heated up, a statement kept coming up: “But what did she do?” Which, unfortunately, isn’t a new statement to be used in the context of gender-based violence (including intimate partner violence), deployed with disturbing frequency by officers of the law, members of the church, staff in Human Resource, and yes, social media too.
And barely a day ago, even when the full glare of a camera makes it rather apparent what was happening, a chorus emerged: “But what did she do?”
The victim-blaming isn’t new though - neither is it limited to this scenario. It happens all around us, far too often than ought to be the case.
When reporting to the police: “Lakini ulifanya nini?”
When bringing it up to marriage counsellors and/or religious figureheads: “We all have a part to play - what did you do to provoke their anger?”
When reporting a case of assault within the workspace: “What did you do to provoke the situation?”
The fact that it’s not limited to that either renders the realities of victims and survivors a whole lot more perilous, to a great extent because of…
Part 2: The whataboutism of “Not all men” and, well, “What about men?”
We’re not going to dive into this. Not now. Not when the disingenuity is so plain to see. We’re not playing that game.
Part 3: “Sasa unataka nifanye nini?”
A couple of years ago, Adelle Onyango invited me to share a diary entry for “Our Broken Silence”, a book co-authored by her and Lanji Ouko-Awori. She invited me into that space, describing me using a term that no one before had used in association with me: An ally.
I froze.
I couldn’t get round to writing it. And I’ve wrestled with that term to this day, a conflict within myself for reasons I attempt to express during a recent conversation with the folks at Unmothering The Woman. At the core of my internal conflict? I don’t view myself as having earned the right to call myself an ally. But that’s a conversation for another time.
Still, the spirit behind being an ally, in my interpretation, brings me to my point: You don’t need to do anything exceedingly extraordinary - the power to shift the course of an event already in play lies in everyday action.
It is almost universal that when it’s a man speaking, other men will listen. That is part of the privilege we wield - and yes, it is privilege when our active presence can literally shift an ongoing flow of events.
This isn’t about playing the part of a hero either - there are ways to wisely de-escalate situations, but the fact still remains that a man stands a better chance of distracting and/or diffusing, which puts it squarely upon the bystanders (by far, a majority) to move from simply standing by, into preventing an ongoing assault.
Speak up. Intervene. Don’t just stand there.
It takes the first voice. Then another. And another.
It’s really that simple a first step.
Epilogue.
It was International Women’s Day. By the end of the day, I still didn’t have it in me to utter the words, “Happy International Women’s Day.” I found it hard to utter those words precisely for the very real likelihood that there’s probably a scenario playing out somewhere in this country at this exact moment in which a girl or woman feels unheard, unsafe, or violated.
Yet it doesn’t negate the fact that women have indeed made strides towards greater recognition within their spaces. And yes, my wording here is very deliberate as well - the work has been (and continues to be) done by women in a multitude of spaces. And for that, for the gains they’ve made both individually and as a collective, even in the face of systemic hurdles, I celebrate them. With every fibre of my being.
So yes, I celebrate the strides. I’m just not sure it was a “happy” day all around. And multiple things can indeed be true at the same time.
Abigail Arunga framed it brilliantly: “Women’s Day is for celebrating women, and also contemplating how to change the systems that bring us down and hurt us. If you value us so much, do consider your role past this one day.”
We’re only now starting to play catch-up as men, and hopefully more of us play our part. We must. Not just in speech, but in action too. Silence on our part implies complicity - endorsement, even. So if you’re willing to stand by the “there are good men” / “not all men”, then action isn’t optional.
