Caster Semenya: Rethinking Gender in Kenya

Facebook, my friends tell me, is my stage. I have been on this stage for a few years only and through Facebook's 'interractive theatre', I have had to, as Sylvia Tamale would have it, learn,unlearn and relearn what exactly it means to be a woman, and perhaps more specifically, to be a black woman strongly committed to the feminist agenda.

The events of the past few weeks in South Africa and the world have sent me thinking more about the question of being a woman. I constantly have had to revisit the place of women in a patriarchal world and mostly when this patriarchy is engineered by patriarchal females. Caster Semenya has been my name in some circles. Mrs Semenya has been my latest asset after my numerous other assets of identity. I have my personal feelings about 'Mrs' as a title but that aside, I am deeply disturbed by my being a Mrs Semenya a name which could possibly refer to Caster Mokgadi Semenya's mother in Limpopo. What does 'Mrs. Semenya' say about gender stereotypes? How does my being Mrs Semenya buy into the same debate about Caster's being male or female? What are we actually saying when Caster becomes my boyfriend? What does this 'labelling' say about the people using it? What is invoked by such ridicule of a woman who has been at the centre of IAAF's gender testing (whatever that could be)? How about when this label is given to me by women? What can I make of this when the women are Kenyan (the country of my origin)? How does such ridicule of Semenya reflect the place of gender in the Kenyan society?

I am deeply disturbed, to say the least.

Perhaps it is easier to laugh and make fun of a black woman that has been labelled 'male' or 'not quite female' by white males. It is, indeed, of no consequence to you when that woman is not your sister, your country mate, your mother or even you. It is of course more fun when that woman is a Caster Semenya with a deep voice, facial hair and masculine physique. It is a lot more comic when IAAF claims to have found much more testerone in Caster's genetic make-up than is 'normal' for a woman.

Of course, you are not Caster Semenya. Neither am I.

I agree she is not Kenyan and may be it get's easier for you to laugh at her because she won a gold medal against your own Janet and many others. But wait a minute, where does this leave you in issues of gender and inevitably, the question of race?

I am a worried Kenyan woman.

Am I perhaps too emotional about an issue that doesnt concern me? Am I just carrying burdens of the world? No, of course not. This deeply concerns me and burdens of the world are my burdens. I cannot fathom what exactly is going on with Kenyan women and others elsewhere. I feel that it is time women took issues of women representation very seriously and personal. An insult to Sarah Bartmann remains an insult to me as a black woman. I take it personal when Caster Semenya is considered to be too good for a woman. I feel deeply insulted as a black woman when black female bodies are paraded for the male gaze in hip-hop, rhumba, advertising, in the fashion industry etc. It is an issue of grave concern to me when young men and women form groups on Facebook for women to post their pictures so that they can show how HOT they are. I have no issue with 'brief dressing' (I am so guilty here) neither do I find make-up problematic but my concern is when such 'skin exposure' becomes an exhibition of black female bodies soliciting affirmation (usually from males).

I refuse to buy into stereotypes about how a woman should look like. I am not going to be part of what appears to me to be an emerging, material, flashy 'women oppressing women thought'. Count me out when a disturbingly high percentage of Kenyan women decide to be patriarchal females in a society in which the same women are emotionally, physically and otherwise abused, children are raped over and over etc.

Come to think of it, how loosely can we still take these matters?

I am off to facebook.

the trouble with freedom

And so there I sat, spat and stared

Sat right under the shadow, the shadow of an image I forfeited

Spat outta my mouth bitter litres; the bitterness of shame

Stared at the dream ; yes, the dream I gave up

But I just sat; sat, spat and stared.

But I just sat; sat, spat and stared

For I knew not why you were there

There where I once was; a place I once ruled

A place in which they mint; mint such greatness

And I stared at how ugly I looked; ugly outside the centre

I stared at how ugly I now looked

But unto me you stared back and spat

Spat not bitterness but scorn; the scorn of failure

The failure of a heroine; a heroine famous for failing

And thus I swore; to cry freedom I swore

To cry freedom I swore; to be that which I always was

And freedom you granted but I still sat, spat and stared

Sat on my big bum that only knew swinging and farting

Spat out the aftertaste of gossiping and backbiting

Stared at you as you said, "Buddy, that's the trouble with freedom;

you knoweth nay what to do with it"

if only you wore mascara

on me did it dawn with a frown
the ache, pain and sting in town
yes, the hurt i had to put down
put down the twinge and rage on a page

and so i sat and pewed
thus firm with my bum
and into my mind they came
two bold lines of blackness

the lines of your tears
the tears of your pang
the pang in your tongue
unto men to say, 'if only you wore mascara'

do call me reactionary

Forget not to call me reactionary
When I look you in the eye
And shout with all my might to fight all night

Call me reactionary and I'll be glad
When I call you a racist
And clearly state for respect of animals can't call you a dog

Please do call me reactionary
When I cry and try
To say gays are human, man or woman

Call me reactionary I say
When I call you all names
A bigot, polygamist, a misogynist worth no feast

But as you call me reactionary
I can only click my heels and swing my hips
My reaction to the ignorance of your arrogance

if only i was a grown-up

when i grow up, i aint sure i will
perhaps if i grow up, just if i will
i will be all i ever wanted
for all i ever wanted was to grow up

not quite to grow up, perhaps
but just to be a grown-up
or do all that grown-ups do
well, just to be a grown-up

if only i was a grown-up
a grown up even for a day
i would do that thing
that thing that all grown-ups do

if only i could be a grown-up
perhaps i would be a better woman
if only i were a grown-up
even without growing up, i would

i would be a grown-up
a grown grown up in a grown-up life
but a dream mine may be
or a nightmare of ever being

Of Menses, Pain and Dirt

I call it womanhood
My sort of femininity
This thing called being
The being of a woman

I no longer call it dirt
When I sit and mess
(are menses a mess?)
Not the mess that I get
From that male gaze
Staring at the mess
The mess of my menses

I love it; just being me
A woman in pain
Yes me in pain and dirt
Because these menses
My productive reproduction
Makes me me
The woman of my being.

Of hacked emails and the 'powerlessness' of denied access

Perhaps this is the last time that I am posting anything on this blog. Someone might just ban me from it by changing my password, changing my secret answer, changing my country of residence or whatever else it is that I may need to reset the password.

I have been proudly telling my friends (and now enemies)about how cautious I always am about spam and scam. The brilliant side of my brain advised me to have as many email accounts as I could possibly have and of course with different names. So, me thought that I would have an account with yahoo (in fact I have two yahoo emails), hotmail, gmail, and as fate would have it two institutional email accounts.What my brilliant side of my brain forgot to tell me (and which the daft side of the same brain worked on) was that I should never have anything linking any of the emails to each other.

In total, me has five email addresses ...oh that was before they got hacked. I now have two addresses (both institutional)...no, I have five email addresses but with access only to two. I do not have access to the other three because my password is wrong!! That is funny, right?

I am devastated to say the least. One of the yahoo emails is my primary email and I use it for very important contacts and information. Somehow, however, I miss my hotmail account access the most! I use it for FACEBOOK men! For the last one week, I cannnot access my Facebook page (could someone please tell me what is going on there?). The facebook addict in me is having a nervous breakdown (or is a nervous condition?)

I feel violated, annoyed, disrespected and utterly irritated.

How do I begin to think of signing up for FB afresh? Where do I even begin? It is the most incapacitating thing that anyone has ever done to the person of my being.

I have lost almost all my contacts. I feel like I am closeted away from the world happening around me. I feel like I am being stalked. I feel like a helpless African slave in a caravan to Europe. I feel like a passenger in a hijacked car. I feel like a homosexual forced to act hetero. I feel angered.

Perhaps I am so angered because I never thought of myself as a target for scam and spam. Perhaps I feel so violated because I thought this always happens to my less computer-wise relatives and friends. Perhaps I feel so incapacitated because I no longer have control of whatever is sent out to my contacts in my name.

It is one (and all) of these things that worries me. "Your email was selected randomly and you are the winner of...Please send your details to this account", "My name is ... I am stuck in (somewhere in Europe, Gaza, Darfur etc) and i decided to send this email to all my friends so that you could debit my bank account number...for my rescue", or even having yahoo/ hotmail notifying their clients of me as a scammer! OMG these things freak me out. Just imagine googling me and the first result that comes up is my expertise in scamming!

Perhaps I shold not be so angered. But hey, I would be less irritated if it was only one email...

If you do not see any more posts here, I have lost access to my blog.