Let’s Talk about Optics
Reactives
You look like a girl.
That was my mom’s reaction when she first saw me with dreadlocks. She wasn’t just amused, she was bewildered. A fair share of the day was spent stealing glances at my hair, perhaps trying to make sense of this new predicament that had befallen her son, and definitely contemplating dragging me to grandma’s house and giving me a clean haircut. When my aunt arrived the next day, it was obvious that my mom had called her. She was never authoritarian like my father, so we were going to try diplomacy.
Precedence
Talking about my dad, ha—did I mention the incident where my elder brother relaxed his hair after completing high school? Yeah, rebellious guy was feeling invincible. My father casually called him, handed him a five-hundred shilling note, gave him instructions on what to buy at the shops, then added: “halafu change uende kinyozi.” (use the balance to go to the barbershop). Beneah had not seen it coming, probably never even realized what hit him. Now, any African will tell you that if an African parent says to do something, don’t dare contravene; by sundown Beneah was back, head shining like a new coin! My father was such — sly and obsequious without scruples. I’m left to wonder what he would have said about my new look. But one thing I know for sure, it wouldn’t have have lasted.
I get where you’re coming from.
My aunt, being a puritan, tends to attribute any immoral or otherwise indecorous behavior to the allure of the devil, and she did. She went on and on about secular ways misleading the youth it never being too late to repent and return to the ways of the light. What really struck me, however, was the idea she was trying to communicate about the supposed image of a “real man.”
You remind me of your father. Just the other day you were in primary school right here in the village, and you passed so well and went to a national high school that only accepts 200 pupils nationwide. All the kids want to study hard and go to a national school too, you inspire them. But what kind of example are you giving with that hair? You have to be a real man Joel, like your father.
But do you get where I’m coming from?
This issue runs deeper than the surface. Not having an effeminate or otherwise emasculating hairdo can be seen as a fast solution to my troubles, but the truth is that societal ideas of what a man or woman should look like, how they should carry themselves, what kinds of things they should do and other whatnots run deep in African communities, often having more profound effects in women’s lives than men’s lives.
Case in point; when my elder sister finished high school and did very well, everyone had an idea of what she should do in college. Herself? She wanted to be an engineer. “No,” my father said. That was supposedly not a girl’s trade. She was devastated. To reiterate what I said earlier, when an African parent tells you to do something, you simply do not disobey. That’s how my sister ended up in Medical school — and thrived, nevertheless. Just last year, she was nominated the best dental student in the country by the Kenya Dental Association. But imagine the kind of engineer she could have been!
My sister’s case might seem less harmful, but the reality is that such stringent notions of gender and gender-related roles do much more harm than good in our society. I was recently chatting with Phelan, a friend from high school and current student at Minerva. He mentioned that when he was young, everyone wanted everything of him too, but mostly they all really wanted him to be someone who would help better their lives, and so he strives to achieve the same to date. However, as a man, no one compelled him into an academic discipline he wasn’t passionate about. The same can be said for myself and most of my male friends, but the situation could have easily panned out differently for a woman. Having grown up in a rural environment and schooled at a rural primary school, I have witnessed cases of girls being forced out of school because their parents — mostly the father — has arranged a marriage for them. Similar stories can be told for other socio-cultural issues and transgressions such as FGM, wife inheritance, and even the traditional property inheritance practices where male descendants are entitled to the family’s land and property while girls are told to “get a husband.”
Digression
Africa is lately considered a rising continent. Most if not all African countries are kleptocracies ruled by a rich and influential few while everyone else is barely getting by, and the societal disconnect is very telling. Most of us who make it to college level or beyond had parents that were, to varying extents, progressive, and that made a huge difference for us. Even as we seek opportunities for ourselves and for future generations, it is equally important to seek the equality of opportunity, and a fundamental part of that is changing the way we have been raised to perceive gender and associated roles. That is my challenge to myself, and I would like to extend it to you.
I’m still the same quirky kid with a dream to change the world. About my hairdo, I still have dreadlocks, and they have never made me any greater or lesser of a person irrespective of societal expectations. I’m still the same introverted, quirky kid who gets more excited by coding than concerts and other social events, tends to overthink 99.99999% of the time, and regularly sleeps at 5 a.m. because he was reading Singularity Hub or Brain Pickings, watching Black Mirror, or attempting terrible poetry. To some that’s good, to some, bad, and, to others, everything in between. But to me it’s just… it’s just me, and that’s all that matters.
That’s all that should matter.