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Date Posted: March 11, 2017
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#BeBoldForChange: Women’s Day and the fearless girl statue

International Women’s Day was marked by many symbolic gestures. One of these however stood out prominently. It was installation of an additional statue on Wall Street, right in front of the charging bull on the eve of International Women’s Day. The statue is of a Defiant Girl, both hands on her waist and looking fearlessly at the charging bull.

The statue designed by artist Kristen Visbal, was part of a State Street Global Advisers, campaign, in solidarity with the day’s demonstrators. SSGA is an asset management firm, which manages $2.5 trillion in assets. The gesture was symbolic in that SSGA petitioned 3500 companies to put more women on their boards to actualize gender diversity in top companies’ leadership structures.

Bringing it closer home, the African Development Bank did a report in 2015 on the place of women in boardrooms of top African countries. In their report, Kenya emerged the top among the region with 19.8% women board directors, followed closely by South Africa with 17.4%. Cote d’Ivoire has the lowest percentage of women in company boards at 5.1%.

The report acknowledges that majority of African countries have at least one woman in their board. However, one third of the 307 companies in the survey did not have women board members.

The World Economic Forum predicts in their Global Gender Gap report (2016) that it will take 2186 for the gender gap to be closed entirely. That is 170 years from now. Is this perhaps too far?

Ron O’ Hanley, the president and CEO of SSGA said in his interview with the Atlantic that the point of the defiant girl statue was not men versus women, rather, it was that, “where there once was just a you, now there’s a me, and we’re here together”. He supports diversity of thought in company leadership positions.

Some barriers to appointing women in company boards are lack of women role models, lack of confidence in women and the “old-boy” networks, fed by family, clan, school and business relations, as the AFDB report states.

Whether the statue will be permanently on Wall Street to pass the message of gender parity is something to be observed. Taking it to the individual, everyone should #BeBoldForChange, championing for gender parity in whatever way they can. You can start by taking the International Women’s Day pledge which we have embedded on this website.

Date Posted: March 8, 2017
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There’s more to the black eyes than meets the eye

Image courtesy

Yesterday on my way to work I saw a woman walk past me. She had not one, but two black  eyes. I couldn’t help but stare. The black circles round her eyes said many unspoken words. One of the circles had a scar that had just healed.

Being a thinker, I went deep into my mind and got lost in building the possible scenarios to explain the black circles. I followed her with my eyes until she disappeared. That’s what you do when you’re absent minded. At least that’s what I do.

Scenario 1:

She has a violent husband and she is staying on because of her kids. Many women get beaten severally, yet stay in an abusive relationship because of children, fear of solitude or dependency on their abusive spouse. So, that is the first scenario that comes to mind when you  see such a woman.

Scenario 2:

Her mode of dressing betrayed her character. She had multi-colored leggings on. She was rather voluptuous, so in my rather judgmental mind, I thought she must be a drunkard. How does it connect with black eyes?

I once lived in a slum while in high school. There were all sorts of interesting characters there. One woman particularly stood out. She was Mama Supuu. Mama Supuu lived in a wooden house with her two children. A spoiled boy who was about 6 years old and a 3 year old girl called Supuu. I don’t remember the boy’s name.

Mama Supuu’s single roomed house also served as a Chang’aa den. It was always full of drunkards late into the night. Since Mama Supuu was a professional mixologist of some sort, she would reward herself with the drink. Mostly it would be a lot. We would hear singing, laughter, and most often, people fighting after having one too many.

Mama Supuu was synonymous with black eyes. She would wake up in the morning screaming at her children who demanded her attention when all she needed was some good sleep after a night  of hard work.

So, you will have to forgive my judgmental mind  as it drifted to the woman being a drunkard. This is the power of formed mental images.

Scenario 3:

The lady might have met muggers who beat the hell out of her leaving her with black eyes, having robbed her of whatever little possessions she had. This scenario made my mind drift to Angelah. Angelah was a single mother of two. She used to be very hardworking, selling vegetables in Buruburu.

She would pass by our house on her way home, to greet my mom. Angelah was gang raped and murdered just metres from our house in Nairobi River Primary School compound one evening. We looked for her everywhere, only for the police to find her mutilated body a week later. Angelah was no more, but her family never wanted to persue justice further. We laid her to rest and forgot the story.

Anyway, my main point is whatever it is that causes black eyes on women, should not be tolerated. It just might end up as a sad statistic which is soon forgotten.