By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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A friend recently proposed that maybe Kenya would be safer in the hands of women and followed this up with a great article in The Daily Nation about the recent nomination of Dorcas Oduor for Attorney General of Kenya.

The article examined how in the past few years more and more women have been showing up in the upper levels of the Kenyan justice system. It wasn’t lost on me that there were a few of them present and wearing robes at the swearing-in of the current president.

All of this is a wonderful development for our favourite sibling rival, so why do I feel so ambivalent about endorsing the sentiment that Kenya would indeed be safer in the hands of women, so to speak? Welp. Because it is complicated, and I say this as someone who calls herself feminist in public.

Given a choice, I always will vote for a woman candidate over a man unless I have excellent reason not to do so. This is a raw numbers game, because although we make up 50 percent of the adult population and in the case of Tanzania we are actually 51 percent, we are criminally underrepresented in public life. We suffer the pain of second-class citizenship in our own countries, a travesty that I am dedicated to redressing.

Read: EYAKUZE: Some of us are living as citizens and others as subjects

What is difficult to admit about my policy is that it stands in stark opposition to the notion that women are intrinsically “better” humans than men. I don’t want gender parity because of a belief that women are morally superior to men, I want gender parity because it is our right. If I say that we should get more women into power because they will be “good,” that would feed into the Mommy complex that patriarchy embraces so hard. The only time patriarchy tolerates women in power is so that they can get tender, loving care from a non-threatening maternal figure.

Once we achieve gender parity then I will certainly be open to nuanced discussions of desirable characteristics in a leader.

I need to overcome my limitations since I am sexist myself. have always considered Tanzania to be a feminine entity, I praise and encourage those traits in her presidents that are traditionally considered womanly, to complement the allegedly masculine characteristics that are required of them.

If my plan works out, one day when I am well dead and gone and the servers that hold my life’s work have been repurposed by our benevolent AI overlord into computing power for the climate stabilisation system that supports life for our progeny, the gender of the people in public service will not register as significant compared to their qualities and qualifications.

Until that blessed day comes, let me congratulate Kenya on this positive development. I have no doubt that their nominations and appointments are bringing out the very best of the best of Kenyan society, for their women are fierce and strong and capable. Kenya deserves that excellence in their public service, we all do, and I hope that you inspire Tanzania in particular and the region at large to start giving superlative women their place in leadership.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report; E-mail: [email protected]