PATRIARCHISM AND WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN WEST POKOT COUNTY, KENYA, 1963–2017

Between independence in 1963 and the 2017 general election, no woman from West Pokot County was elected as a constituency member of the National Assembly, as Senator or as Governor, the only national seat held by a woman being the uncontested Woman Representative seat. Studies of Pokot women have addressed peace-building, socio-cultural life and economic activity, while patriarchy has been examined as a barrier to political participation only at family level and in national aggregates. The impact of patriarchism on women’s political participation in the county was examined through a qualitative historical design. Twenty respondents six women politicians, six village elders and eight of the general population were interviewed in Pokot and English, three focus group discussions were held, and oral evidence was triangulated with Kenya National Archives Local Native Council minutes and government reports within a liberal feminist framework. Patriarchism was found to operate through the exclusion of women from the kokwo and the male age-grade structures that governed the community; a household order in which the husband’s word was final; violence used to stamp male authority, which elders named the foremost obstacle facing women candidates; dismissive speech about women’s capacity; men’s direction of how wives and dependants vote; exclusion from party office; and control of girls’ schooling and of household resources. Public responsibility, where conferred, was confined to matters classified as women’s concerns. Patriarchism, rather than any deficit in women’s capacity, is the decisive determinant of this marginalisation, operating as an institutional structure rather than a set of private attitudes.