The following derives from a forthcoming paper on gender’s role in sub-Saharan Africa’s presidential politics.  I would like to thank the Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality for the generous support offered during my research stay and the participants at the Centre’s lunch series for extremely helpful comments.

Women's poor electoral performance is all the more striking given Africans’ expressed openness to having women political leaders. Approximately 71 percent of those polled in a recent Afrobarometer survey agreed with the notion that women should have the same chance of being elected to political office as men. In the same survey, however, about a quarter of respondents believed men to be better political leaders and more deserving of electoral office – men are more likely than women to agree with the statement (32 versus 21 percent). These data suggest that notions of political competence and credibility are not gender-neutral and may be in fact bear heavily on women’s electoral prospects.

Current research on the patriarchy and its systematic exclusion and marginalization of women does little to explain the specific ways that gender affects both the women’s political credibility and their presidential candidacies. My research therefore asks: how, if at all, does gender affect African women’s ability to act as ethnic and national flag bearers?  I address this puzzle by proposing a theoretical framework in which ethnic constructions of gender are used to justify the sexism targeted towards women presidential candidates. These constructions of gender impose changeable and malleable identities on women based solely on their role as producers of the ethnic nation and markers of its boundaries. Such classifications and distinctions throw women’s loyalty to the group into doubt, affecting their ability to credibly claim flag bearer status.

For those women who nevertheless go on to compete for the presidency, sexism is then deployed strategically to both deter and discredit their candidacies (Manne, 2017). Women candidates find themselves excluded from ethnic patronage networks that would give them access to the resources necessary to claim either “big (wo)man” status or be their community’s flag-bearer. The sexist tactics employed also negatively impact women party leaders’ ability to link their own and their party’s electoral prospects with those of their lower office co-partisan candidates. This lack of alignment makes it difficult for these presidential aspirants to preside over cohesive and disciplined party organizations. Yet, as I discuss, it is the very experience of sexism that manifests itself in the form of exclusion and vulnerability, especially among their ethnic kin, that allows women candidates to credibly promote a programmatic policy agenda. The research focus here is on relatively peaceful and stable societies where patriarchal structures and social relations have not been explicitly eroded by violent conflict.

I use Martha Karua’s 2013 presidential bid on a NARC-Kenya ticket to examine and understand these dynamics at work. Despite being the party leader since 2008, Karua’s presidential ambitions were hampered by the way ethnicity and its patriarchal underpinnings were leveraged against her candidacy. I show that the ethnic construction of gender and the nature of patronage relationships in Kenya had a consequential effect on her ability to credibly claim “big (wo)man” status. Ethnic leaders repeatedly called into question her credentials and ability to act as both an ethnic and national leader. These sentiments, which were echoed by both rivals and in the media, had an effect on Karua’s ability to draw and maintain elite funding.  Without ethnic leaders endorsing her candidacy or financial elites funding her campaign, it was difficult for her and the party to align their interests with those of co-partisan candidates running for lower office.  Many of these candidates for lower office treated the party simply as a means to an end; the campaign strategies they employed did not their tie their electoral fates to those of the party or Karua. In anticipation of and despite the existence of these constraints, Karua’s candidacy also demonstrates how a lifetime of experience with sexism both socially and professionally informs women presidential candidates’ strategic pursuit of a programmatic platform that appeals to women and the youth as they are the most economically and politically marginalized. Karua also invoked her motherhood to signal conformity with social norms and membership in a group that is able to exercise agency by redefining its role and status in society through political action (Walker, 1995).

Karua’s professional achievements, however, did not exempt her from sexism. She was reminded of her (subordinate) status and her achievements were credited to the benevolence of the patriarchy. The particular type of sexism Karua experienced may have been worse than that experienced by those running for lower office. The presidency is a high stakes position that requires candidates to both: win votes in direct, national elections; and be ethnic leaders. It is the interaction of these political and sociological institutions that facilitates the use of ethnically based gender distinctions to justify sexism targeted at women presidential candidates.

Ethnic constructions of gender and their origins have implications for how we understand contemporary representational deficits in sub-Saharan Africa. By analyzing who has the right to represent and be represented, we get a better sense of the enduring effects of ethnic and colonial institutions on women’s mobilization, participation and representation; women’s contributions to democratization and development are in the process of analysis explicitly acknowledged. (Kanogo, 2005). This also means that we have to grapple with not only how sexism is strategically deployed as a tool that maintains oppressive social, cultural and political institutions across time and space; but also with the agency women presidential candidates exercise as they run for office and advocate for their policy platforms.

References:

Kanogo, T (2005) African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya 1900–1950. Eastern African Studies Series. Oxford: James Currey; and Athens, OH: Ohio University Press; and Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers.  

Manne, K. (2018). Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Walker, C (1995) Conceptualising motherhood in twentieth century South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 21 (3), 417-437.