Abstract
Around the world, the voices of women past and present, are being heard as their experiences, expressions and expectations are recorded. Muthoni Likimani’s description of the impact of the Mau Mau Revolt1 in Kenya in the 1950s on women’s daily lives takes us with the African women of that country through the ordeals they faced, as they sought to provide for their families while yet aiding their communities in the political struggle. Likimani’s seven accounts, based on her own observations as well as those of family and friends, present a broader vision of women’s roles in Kenya’s nationalist movement than any we have had before. For we see here from the women themselves the critical roles they played in the successful nationalist struggle and that they had reasons of their own for joining the movement. An analysis of those motivations and aspirations helps to explain not only the relationships among some women and Mau Mau, but the political positions women have assumed in independent Kenya.
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Notes
The following life histories have been consulted in this introductory essay. Reference to the statements about women in them does not imply that Muthoni Likimani endorses their interpretations. Rather they have been used to illustrate the limitations of previous accounts of Mau Mau with regard to women. The consulted works include Guen Gikoyo, We Fought for Freedom (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1979)
Waruhiu Itote (General China), ‘Mau Mau’ General (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1967)
Waruhiu Itote (General China), Mau Mau in Action (Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers, 1979)
Ngugi Kabiro, Man in the Middle: The Story of Ngugi Kabiro (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada: LSM Information Center, Life Histories from the Revolution Series, 1973)
Bildad Kaggia, Roots of Freedom 1921–1963: The Autobiography of Bildad Kaggia (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1975)
Josiah Kariuki, ‘Mau Mau Detainee’: The Account by a Kenyan African of His Experience in Detention Camps (London: Oxford University Press, 1963)
Maina wa Kinyatti (ed.), Thunder From the Mountains: Mau Mau Patriot Songs (London: ZED Press, 1980)
Mohamed Mathu, Urban Guerrilla: The Story of Mohamed Mathu (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada: LSM Information Center, Life Histories from the Revolution Series, 1973)
Karigo Muchai, The Hardcores: The Story of Karigo Muchai (Richmond, British Columbia, Canada: LSM Information Center, Life Histories from the Revolution Series, 1973)
Joseph Muriithi, War in the Forest: The Autobiography of a Mau Mau Leader (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1971)
H. K. Wachanga, The Swords of Kirinyaga: The Fight for Land and Freedom (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1975)
Joram Wamweya, Freedom Fighter (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1971).
The most recent and comprehensive analysis of African Women from the point of view of many academic disciplines is Jean Hay and Sharon Strichter, African Women South of the Sahara (London: Longman, 1984). A review essay by Margaret Strobel, ‘African Women’ (Signs 1982 Volume 8, Number 1, pp. 109–31), fully describes the literature of the last two decades. Selected chapters in the following books provide useful overviews of the ideas and research on African women: Christopher Mojekwu et al. (eds), African Society, Culture and Politics: An Introduction to African Studies (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1977); Beverly Lindsay (ed.), Comparative Perspective of Third World Women: The Impact of Race, Sex, and Class (New York: Praeger, 1980); Filomena Steddy (ed.), The Black Woman Crossculturally (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1981). Two earlier classics include Nancy Hafkin and Edna Bay (eds), Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976) and Edna Bay and Nancy Hafkin (eds), ‘Women in Africa,’ a special issue of African Studies Review, 1975, volume 18, number 3. Numerous books and articles on individual women, women of certain ethnic groups, and analysis of women on a country-by-country basis by both Western and African scholars are cited in the works listed above. Specific references to analysis of Kenyan women are found in all these sources.
Arthur Hazlewood, The Economy of Kenya: The Kenyatta Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979) presents a good overview of women’s economic situation. Kathy Santilli, ‘Kikuyu Women in the Mau Mau Revolt: A Closer Look,’ Ufahamu, Volume VIII, Number 1, 1977, pp. 143–59, surveys women’s participation based on secondary sources.
See Cheryl Johnson, ‘Madame Alimotu Pelewura and the Lagos Market Women’, Tarikh, Volume 7, Number 1, 1981, pp. 1–10, and Nina Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized: Women’s Political Activity in Southern Nigeria, 1900–1945 (Berkeley, California: University of California, Institute of International Studies, 1982).
David Gordon, Women of Algeria: An Essay on Change (Harvard, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972).
S. B. Spies, ‘Women and War,’ in Peter Warwick (ed.), The South African War: The Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902 (London: Longman, 1980).
Cherry Michelmann, The Black Sash of South Africa: A Case Study in Liberalism (London: Oxford University Press, 1975).
Hilda Bernstein, For Their Triumph and For Their Tears: Conditions and Resistance of Women in Apartheid South Africa (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Internal Defense and Aid Fund, 1975).
Carol Berkin and Clara Lovett, Women, War and Revolution (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1980).
Muthoni Likimani, What Does A Man Want? (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1974).
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© 1985 Muthoni Likimani
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O’Barr, J. (1985). Introductory Essay. In: Passbook Number F.47927. Women in Society. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17960-2_1
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