JENDA: A JOURNAL OF CULTURE AND AFRICAN WOMEN STUDIES ISSN: 1530-5686 Issue 6 (2004)

Njoki M. Kamau

Abstract

This paper examines the experiences of the Kenyan women academics as they struggle to develop their careers. The data I present is part of a large study that I conducted for period of eight months in Kenyan. I conducted in-depth interviews, and participant observations with twenty-four academic women in 1994. I revisited the field to update my data in 2002.

The data indicates that although academic women are considered a privileged tiny elite in comparison with the rest of the Kenyan women, their lives are conflicted. They experience multiplicity of role conflicts and negative traditional culture which defines them as social deviants or outsiders insiders. Women academic are considered as intruders, atypical and at best outsiders in the academe. They are excluded from informal academic networks, lack academic mentors, suffer excessive workloads and are marginalized by a strong patriarchal culture. Their accomplishments are undervalued or discounted. They experience various forms of sexual harassment, and as a result their careers develop at a slower rate compared with those of their male counterparts.

These women however, are not passive victims. They are active and resilient actors who develop various strategies to resist, subvert, overcome or cope with the daily realities of their lives. Indeed, majority of them survive and thrive within the Kenyan academe.

Background

In Kenya today, it has been argued and continues to be argued with pride that there is no discrimination against women, since the constitution deals directly with and approves equal education status for women, (Riria, 1984). It is argued that women are employed in important positions in armed forces, in the police force, prisons and in the government as well as in private sectors (Government of Kenya 1989 64). Following this line of argument one is forced to ask how many women are in these important positions, what decisions they make, how many have had access to formal western educational system and how many have succeeded? A closer examination of the Kenyan-Western formal education system reveals that there is a glaring contradiction between theory and practice.

In 1993 the Kenyan population stood at 30 million with a growth late of 4 percent (Republic of Kenya, 1993). 52 percent of this population is women and girls yet 65 percent of the women are illiterate. While only 35 percent of the men are illiterate. This statistics are interesting and seem to disagree with World Bank (1988-1989) Noormohamed study showing that educational parity at all levels has almost been achieved. This gender gap in the educational provision has popularly been attributed to the late entry of women into formal education during the colonial era. Nevertheless, forty years after independence educational access for women particularly at the tertiary level has not increased significantly. For example, University admission records for the 1992-93 academic year has shown that even after affirmative measures were taken and undergraduate cut off point for girls was lowered from 69 to 68 points, of the 10,189 undergraduate students admitted for that academic year, only 2,771 (27 percent) were women. Although these statistics are important in showing us the access trends in education , they do not reveal the whole story. For example, rising statistics conceal the fact that lowering qualifying marks(points) alone without genuine efforts to rectify factors limiting girls’ achievements in schools cannot translate into equal educational and employment opportunities. These statistics do not also tell us into which fields of study these women are enrolled, attrition rates, or how many might proceed to PhD. levels.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that in primary schools enrollment parity is almost achieved. For example studies by World Bank (1988), UNICEF (1989) and Noormohamed indicate that 52 percent of the pupils enrolled are boys while 48 percent are girls. This rosy picture is deceiving because overall 65 percent of the female population remain illiterate and only 35 percent of the male population is illiterate. This can be attributed to late entry of women in western formal education, high attrition rates, fewer school places for girls, poor performance among girls, early pregnancies, distance to and from schools, low girls’ morale, teachers’ negative impact on the girls’ education, and the fact that some enroll and graduate still illiterate because they face multiplicity of domestic responsibilities, such as fetching water and food fuel and helping their mother’s in other domestic chores that they have no time left to concentrate on their studies (UNDP,2001).

Earlier studies on women’s education in Kenya, for example Kinyanjui (1975) Maleche (1976), Eshiwani (1985), all seem to agree that the number of female students drastically thins out as one ascends the educational ladder, that girls perform poorly than boys in science subjects, that girls have low educational aspirations, and that girls are grossly underrepresented in higher education, particularly in the University. Available statistics show that even fewer women have access to the graduate level. For example, at Kenyatta University, during 1989/90 academic year, out of 227 people admitted to the graduate programs, only 54 (4.2 percent) were women. These figures are important because it is from this insignificant pool of graduates that academic women will be drawn. This means that women chances of getting a research or teaching post at the University level are very limited. However, it is important to note that although increasing enrollment and hiring of women at all levels of the educational system is important, it should not be confused with equality. Evidence gleaned from literature shows that even in countries where equality of access is achieved, surpassed or approximated, women become segregated into distinct areas of study. This sex differentiation of the curriculum constitutes a major mechanism in reproducing sexual division in labor, particularly at the professional level.

Moreover, as Robertson (1985) clearly indicated, possession of western formal education creates a new dilemma for African women. The colonialists initially introduced formal western education, to the male gender, with an express aim of serving the need for manpower development. When it was later introduced to some few colonial Kenyan women, it was an education for adaptability whereby, the African woman was encouraged to remain the custodian of African culture while at the same time internalizing 19th century western Victorian capitalistic patriarchy ideas of domesticity. In Kenya, therefore, women’s lives began to be shaped and continue to be shaped by both old forms of indigenous culture and Westernization–forms that live side by side, at times, in clear lines of confrontation and at times with blurred distinctions.

In this paper, I examine the lives of Kenyan women in higher education and in particular, academic women. The data suggests that women academics’ career experiences are greatly shaped by the interlocking nature of the continuities and discontinuities of the indigenous gender role expectations and western hierarchies of gender subordination. The data illustrates that women’s career development lags behind those of their male counterparts due to lack of support, exclusionary practices and inhospitable environment, Further more, the data indicates that academic women are active social agents in shaping their careers, personal and social lives. As active agents of social change, they cross gender boundaries by resisting, subverting, juggling and adapting the subordinate roles assigned to them as women.

Women who teach and conduct research in Kenyan universities seem to experience remarkably sharp contradictions and dilemmas as they try to disentangle themselves from a dependent capitalistic patriarchy. These tensions and conflicts are shaped by societal gender typed attitudes and academic women’s efforts to intervene in their social conditions. They continuously attempt to redefine their identities, adjust, resist, negotiate and subvert their sex typed roles in an effort to make the academe work for them.

By virtue of their position and higher education, they are in a privileged position compared with the majority of their sex, yet they are still disadvantaged when compared with men in the same institutions. In particular, the general society and the university community view these women ambivalently. They are expected to excel in and model their expected biological role as “good” wives, mothers, caregivers, and custodians in the African culture. At the same time, they are expected to behave as western educated women, to be goal oriented, aggressive, competent and productive in the academic world just like their male counterparts. This dual role and cultural expectations works to the disadvantage of Kenyan women academics. In the university, their presence is neither resented nor welcomed. They are perceived as outsiders within the sacred grove, intruders, incompetent and sometimes ridiculed as unfeminine.

The data I present in this paper is part of qualitative field study that I conducted in Kenyan between January and August of 1993 and updated in the summer of 2002. I now turn to research process.

Qualitative-Feminist Approach

There is a dearth of methodologies and theories that are historically oriented, geographically specific and grounded in the experiences of African women. Given the diversity of women’s experiences in the various classes, religions and ethnic groups in Kenyan society, and the fact that existing feminist literature on African Women, privileges the rural over urban, (Zeleza 1993, 108), I had to use a combination of research methods in order to capture the experiences of academic women. It is usually assumed that western formal education is a panacea for all Kenyan social problems. As such women professionals are assumed to have made it and therefore, experience or pose no problems. These tiny privileged elite attract very little attention, if any, from the research community. It is ironical to note that immeasurable community and family resources as well as the national educational budget is spent on putting these women through the education system, yet there seems to be no interest in researching the returns from these huge investments ,nor the lived experiences of these women. In the third world, and Kenya in particular fewer researchers are interested with people at the top. Research is almost always conducted with people at the bottom. It is these specific tiny privileged Kenyan elite that my study focused on. This research project stemmed out of my personal experiences and observations in Kenyan universities.

I chose to combine ethnographic-qualitative feminist methods in order to allow the research participants identify, describe, question and analyze the problems they experience in their daily lives both as women and as academics. Feminist research is often, although not, inevitably conducted within a qualitative paradigm. Web (1992, 423), argues that feminist research is research on women and for women. Quoting Klein (1993) she writes:

I define research for women as research that tries to take women’s needs, interests and experiences into account and aims at being instrumental at improving women’s lives in one way or another.

I also used this research methodology because it does not only take women’s needs, their interest and experiences into account, but treats research subjects as knowing subjects whose knowledge must be respected. It claims explicitly that there is no form of knowledge from a disinterested perspective. This perspective, therefore, allows both the researcher and the research participants to be actively involved as both informants and investigators in democratic process. As an academic woman born and raised in Kenyan society, the issues I investigated are of a particular concern to me and I believe to the academic women too. I agree with Reinharz (1983, 176):

The research problem must be of sincere concern to the researcher and of sincere concern the subjects so that they will collaborate in the uncovering the phenomenon.

In order to enter the women’s world and understand their perspectives, I interviewed twenty four academic women in an in-depth manner, observed and shadowed them in their natural situations so that they could talk of things that deeply concerned them, express their feelings and emotions. Each academic woman was interviewed for two sessions. Each session lasted two hours or more. Every woman was observed or shadowed for a day or two. I also analyzed secondary data, which have enriched the findings presented in this paper. Data gathered from both primary and secondary sources was analyzed thematically and triangulated. I use pseudonyms such as Angela, Maria, Angelina etcetera to protect the privacy of my research respondents. It is to these findings I now turn.

Careers Development

The Politics of Promotion

Almost two-thirds of the academic women in this study perceived themselves as fighters interested in genuine transformations of gender relations within the university. These women believed that there exists covert or hidden discrimination against women in the four national universities despite the fact that the universities pride themselves on rules, regulations and promotion criteria designed to ensure fairness and equity. In their view, women academics continue to be marginal both numerically and in terms of prestige and status in the university. Although men and women were paid an equal salary at the entry point of their academic careers depending on their qualifications and experience, in the long run, men end up being paid much more than women and occupying senior and prestigious positions in the university hierarchy. The women are aware that men get promoted faster than women and are more likely to be appointed into positions of authority such as chairs of departments, deans of faculties, directors of bureaus, heads of schools, principals of colleges, vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors. To illustrate their disadvantaged status and detail their exclusion, the women often pointed to the fact that all the vice-chancellors and their deputies at the four national universities were male. All the deans of faculties at Kenyatta and Nairobi University were male.

Women are underrepresented among the academics as well as the administrators. Of the 2,356 total academic staff in the four universities in 1993, only 450 (19.1 per cent) were women. This finding parallels the underrepresentation of women among academic staff in developed countries such as Canada and Britain (Acker, 1991). As in other countries, women are overwhelmingly found in junior positions as lecturers, assistant lecturers and tutorial fellows. For example, of the total academic women 86 per cent is concentrated in the lower ranks. The majority of these women are overrepresented in the Faculty of Arts and Education. Only three women were full university professors and they were in the traditional women’s fields of home economics, religious studies and education. Table 1 illustrates this unequal pattern of gender representation.

Table 1: Academic Staff Representation in the Five Kenyan National Universities by Designation and Sex, August 1994

Source: I computed these figures from departmental lists, counter-checked them against the lists of the deans of faculties, and the university calendar during the months of June to August 1994. Universities do not keep up-to-date lists of employees divided by gender.

* These numbers do not include academics at Laikipia campus and the Department of Agricultural Engineering at Jomo Kenyatta University College of Science and Technology, due to social and technical difficulties. Only the heads of department could release the staff list for reasons they termed as sensitive information. It was impossible to track the responsible heads. Their numbers are few and I believe the omission will not in any way affect the findings in this study.

It is important to point out that even the seeming over representation of women in the lectureship position is a new phenomenon. In the mid-1980s Kenyans witnessed the sudden change of the whole education system from seven years of primary education, four years of secondary education, two years of advanced secondary education and three years of university education (7-4-2-3), a system inherited from the British colonial rule and in place since 1963 when Kenya became independent, to a North American system of eight years of primary education, four years of secondary education and four years of higher education (8-4-4). With this abrupt change, three additional universities were set up but with no attendant qualified staff (for more discussion on this issue see the McKay Report, 1981). What followed was a high turnover among senior male academics, who went to head the newly established universities and their new departments and faculties.

This exponential expansion of university education was a blessing in disguise to the majority of women academics who for years had been blocked in the junior position of tutorial fellowship. Many women in possession of a master’s degree, who had earlier tried to get themselves hired in the university but were rejected, were hired with these new developments. Promotion criteria were relaxed and movement from a tutorial fellowship to a lectureship only required two years of continuous university teaching plus presentation of academic papers in departmental seminars and proven ability to pursue doctoral work. Thus there was an influx of women academics into the universities in the mid-1980s. During the same period, blocked women were either promoted in their university or moved to the new ones in search of better promotional prospects.

However, during my fieldwork, the majority of the women who were part of the 1980s influx were utterly disillusioned. Initially they considered themselves “lucky” to have been hired. Now they perceive themselves as “ghettoed”, “hemmed in”, “hedged in” or “locked in” lectureship positions without much hope for promotion. Their entrance into the university teaching positions and accelerated promotion to lectureships has been a dead end. Departmental establishments coupled with a lack of research funds continued to ensure that these women remain locked in junior lectureship positions.[1] For example, some women complained that their doctoral theses stagnated because they lacked funds to conduct field work. They were constantly advised to use their own money with the promise that the university would reimburse them when funds became available. The women lacked these extra funds.

One such disillusioned academic is Regina, who described herself as a hard worker, goal oriented and ambitious. She narrates:

I am one of the lucky lot . . . beneficiaries of the expansion of the university system during the 1980s . . . I consider myself lucky because one of the most difficult hurdles for a woman is to get one hired in the university. . . . I got my Master’s degree in the 70s. I applied for a position for five consecutive years with no results. Once McKay report was out and universities out of the blue sprung up. Tutorial fellowships were advertised. I at once applied. It was a God-sent opportunity. I secured a position. Two years later, I completed my probation and applied for lectureship, permanent and pensionable status. I am glad one senior colleague had advised me on how to prepare. . . . I presented papers in departmental seminars, had an excellent teaching record and of course defended my Ph.D. proposal. All went well. I was promoted to lectureship without fuss. That was in 1986. I have been in the same position for the last eight years. I feel like I am hemmed in this rank . . . No money for research or basic necessities for teaching. . . . According to the university establishment there are only eight positions in my department for senior lecturers. Currently none is vacant. . . . Maybe I should consider a departmental transfer. . . . that too is difficult. You see I am “kaput” I am done. I am locked in this lectureship position [laughing jokingly]. Maybe I will be promoted when one of them [senior lecturer] resigns or decides to die.

From Regina’s narration, it becomes quite clear that the academic promotion process is quite long and hard for both men and women. However, women’s promotions take much longer not only because they are newcomers into the academic world and therefore lack the necessary formal and informal negotiating skills, but also because they have to depend on the good will of senior male academics. Regina tells us that a male colleague coached her on the tips to success. These unwritten rules are not readily accessible to all academic women. Moreover, this dependency on male academics might pose serious threats to women who may seek to establish their own autonomy and independent career paths. The women academics are trailblazers and as a group lack numeric power, lack female models to support them or to emulate, and therefore, face very stiff competition for the rare openings with little or no support from the established male academic elite. Senior positions are overwhelmingly occupied by men, who rarely resign. Establishments are fixed and, therefore, very few openings occur.

The women believed that the way the university is organized, structured and operated works to the advantage of male academics. Promotion criteria were not simply based on merit. Promotions were not only gendered, but were also highly dependent on ethnicity, brotherization[2] and professional and political patronage. Angela, a senior lecturer who described herself as a warrior determined to continue fighting for a worthy cause, explains:

The stated promotion criteria emphasize quality publications in reputable journals, excellent teaching for a continuous number of years and contribution to the university life. . . . Other extraneous factors do come into play when promotions come for review. . . . Factors such as loyalty to the university leadership, ability to influence levers of power is connected to who is a Luo, Kikuyu or Kamba [ethnic groups in Kenya] . . . all these factors come into play when promotions are being considered. . . . I can provide examples of many men and a couple of women who have been promoted not on merit but on the basis of factors beyond the stated promotion criteria.

These women maintained that it was simply incorrect to perceive the promotion criteria as independent and fair. They knew far too many persons who had been promoted because they were “good boys” as well as some women who were sponsored by senior male colleagues with whom they were romantically involved or because they were perceived as “good girls” In their view, however, these extraneous variables beyond the stated promotion criteria tended to work mainly to the disadvantage of women academics and to the advantage of male academics. Male academics accumulate advantages in the sense that they are more likely to be well connected to the political system, more experienced in the university politics, more involved in academic networks and more often than not have wives who take care of their social, emotional and domestic needs. As such they have formal and informal support and the time to devote to their academic pursuits. Edna, a senior lecturer who described herself as embattled, describes the promotion criteria as “a political document which is used to curtail women’s upward mobility within the university.” She decried the many social cultural and structural barriers put in the way of academic women’s career development and spoke of her own difficulties:

. . . the fact that I am a senior lecturer is as a result of years of protracted struggle . . . I have served in this university [where she teaches and interview was conducted] with dedication. I was among the first women hired as academics. That was in the mid-70s. . . . The men do not believe a woman could be competent. After all they argue “what can a woman tell us.” It’s an oligarchy. The same men have been running the university for years. The same men are virtually in all committees and when it came to publications they exchange information among themselves . . . You feel terrible when young men join the staff and quickly get promoted. Senior male profs co-opt junior males to do background research, submit an article for a certain book or nominate their kind for awards and scholarships. . . they turn around saying women are not aggressive, hardworking or determined. Tell me, how can you achieve when you are excluded or barriers, obstacles are put on your way. It’s all too hard, but I just knew I did not have a lot of choice and I kept trying and only last year they were convinced and gave me my lectureship. They want to make it appear that women are only good at producing and nurturing babies and taking care of the home. . . . They keep reminding you that you are a woman and a woman’s place is in the kitchen. . . . I tell you don’t believe them. It is our Kenyan culture which privileges men. . . . Women in this university and elsewhere work extremely hard, but they lack the recognition. Men in this university and particularly male professors cannot acknowledge that some women are better than them all.

The women in no uncertain terms argued that the cut-throat competition for the few positions in the academic hierarchy was biased against them because they encountered negative socio-cultural attitudes from senior male colleagues who were determined to see them only as women irrespective of their academic productivity. The women mentioned that it was not unusual to encounter sexist academics who challenged and undermined their authority, devalued their work and ideas, and questioned their credibility. At times women’s accomplishments were dismissed as an outcome of having a sexual relationship with a senior male colleague. Regina, for instance, complained that the head of her department kept undermining her academic worth. In her words:

I completed my Masters with shining grades. What appals me today is the head of my department. He continuously keeps asking me - “Oh! who supervised your master’s project” and when I tell him Abdul supervised me he retorts: “No wonder you got an A grade. He wanted to marry you. Is that right”. . . . He makes me feel very nervous . . . . He reminds me of male students when I was an undergraduate. They used to undermine our accomplishments by arguing that women were lucky by the fact that they could get “Markisi ya chupi” [underwear marks] meaning that women students could secure higher marks by offering sexual favors to male professors. . . . This kind of attitude makes the strongest of us women to be extra cautious and this kind of limits what one can achieve.

And as if supporting Regina’s fears, Angela asserted that some male professors are even afraid to support women academics openly for fear of raising suspicions. Speaking of her own denied promotion she asserts:

For a woman in this university you have always to be on guard. . . . I vividly remember when I approached Professor Njama and requested him to write a referee letter for me. . . . First he told me that his letter may disadvantage me because it might be interpreted by the administration that he was trying to support me, first because we hailed from the same ethnic community and two, I was a woman. I still persuaded him to support me, but he refused. I did get another professor to referee me . . . at the interview I remember I was asked two questions around my personal life which I thought were in bad taste. I never got the promotion, but I believe it was for personal reasons. . . . When you are frank, aggressive and determined, they [university administrators] always think you must be having some powerful social contacts or taller godfathers.[3] On several occasions I have been questioned about godfathers unknown to me.

From stories such as Angela’s and Regina’s we see that some male academics devalue their female colleagues’ hard work and intelligence and hint that women academics use their sexual favors to secure high grades and, therefore, are not quite qualified. This kind of attitude discourages many women from trying. In terms of promotions women’s qualifications were under far more scrutiny than those of their male colleagues. Rathgeber (1991, 60) arrived at the same conclusion, arguing that female student physicians were expected to fail by the school authorities. When they did succeed, their success was explained by claims that their grading had been less severe, or that they had used sexual attraction as unfair advantage. This undervaluation of women’s achievements is carried into the professional lives of women academics.

Lack of Time: Excessive Academic and Administrative Workloads

Not only do the academic women encounter negative social attitudes which impact on their career development, they are overburdened by excessive academic and administrative routine work which leaves them with no time for publishing. Lack of publication in turn means their careers stagnate. Repeatedly, the women quoted the overused cliché that “you either publish or perish”.

The women again and again told me that although both men and women had a relatively equal workload, their own promotional prospects were limited by lack of time. Time was perceived as a critical resource which needed to be strictly “economized”, “managed” and “wisely budgeted”. This lack of time was tied to the structural, organizational and administrative limitations and conditions so peculiar to universities in some of the developing African countries. Most of the women complained of high enrollment rates in the university without the university making an effort to match both the physical and human resources to the high rates of enrollment. As such the lecturers as well as the students spend phenomenal amounts of time in the library scrambling for the few textbooks. Specifically, the women felt overextended by the large class sizes, heavy teaching loads, administering of examinations and the grading of students’ continuous assessment tests as well as the marking of final examinations. On average the women interviewed had about twenty hours of lectures per week. The preparation for these contact hours meant a huge amount of time spent in the library in an effort to make comprehensive notes because students lacked enough or appropriate textbooks. The students depended to a large extent on the lecture notes. Some of the women reported having to teach day and night to make up for lost time in times of academic unrest (strikes).[4] Some not only complained about lack of resources but also of the male hierarchical organization of the university which disadvantaged the women as a group and as junior academics. As junior academics they were expected to serve faithfully as academic housewives, doing most of the boring and repetitive clerical jobs in the departments. These tasks included computing of students’ final grades in a given department, timetabling and goodwill committees. Since most of the female academics were either at the rank of lecturer or tutorial fellow, they were inadvertently involved in this boring, time consuming exercise while most of the male academics served on important brainwork committees or pursued their research interests as aptly illustrated by Mwende’s comments:

In this university it is not automatic that a student proceeds from first year to second year or to third year and so forth. There are conditions. A student must score an average mark to be allowed to proceed to the next year . . . This means a lot of work particularly for these junior members of staff who automatically get into the examination committee . . . After members of the teaching staff complete grading their papers it is the work of the examination committee to find an average grade for each student. This is a particularly tedious process of crunching numbers. I particularly dislike adding numbers with no calculators available . . . Then sorting of the student papers either alphabetically or according to students’ registration numbers . . . This process can take weeks working on a daily basis. I remember one time we worked on Saturday and Sundays. What is annoying is that some senior male academics in spite of grading their papers, they deliberately refuse to arrange their script alphabetically or otherwise and expect us [members of examination committee] to sort the scripts for them. I clearly remember an incidence whereby a male professor handed his scripts all mixed up . . . The chairman of the department excused this professor on basis of age and that he was stressed out and without shame or blinking asked the members of the committee to sort out these scripts. I was particularly furious but I was made to understand that this is a training ground and that all other senior professors have endured this exercise.

I had the privilege of working with the members of the examination committee in one of the core departments of the faculty of education in one of the universities. As a member of the university teaching community (and a former colleague) I was allowed to enter, mingle, sit and work and observe the examination committee at work for two days. The work involved manual sorting of hundreds of scripts in the required order, moving scripts from their safe stacks at room corners to tables where examination officers meticulously matched various scripts to be sure they belonged to one candidate, calculating the grade points on scratch papers and entering the average grade on a master student list which was prepared by the administration. After transferring marks from the students’ scripts to the master list then the scripts were taken back to their safe corners. There were incidents of scripts missing or getting displaced which caused a lot of anxiety in the room. Entering of marks would be temporarily halted until the missing script was found. The search could take hours or even a day. I was particularly moved by these individuals’ ability to make fun of their predicament. They joked and laughed about their junior positions and ridiculed senior male academics whom they accused of arrogance and misusing their senior status to shirk working in the examination room.

What was most revealing was the fact that this department comprised thirty-six members of the teaching staff and only five of these were women. All the five women academics were involved in the examination committee, which they all loathed and described as time consuming, boring, repetitive, and mind boggling. Computing of marks was manually done because the university lacked basic computer technology. Even simple calculators were rarely in use in the examination room when I carried out my observations. In the absence of efficient technology which would not only improve the efficiency of the university and save phenomenal amounts of time, the women, the majority of whom were junior academics, were called upon to provide this clerical labor. Although one of the five women was a senior lecturer, she was actively serving as an assistant examination officer, while the chief examination officer was a male professor who played no more than an overseer role.

Sophia, who had served on the examination committee for several years, was cognizant of the fact that to climb up the academic ladder, this was one of the rituals to be endured. However, when her name was put up on the timetable committee she decided to check how duties were allocated. To her dismay she found that women academics were overburdened with clerical work (done by hand) while male academics were involved in committees that required brainwork. When Sophia questioned this sexual division of labor, her head of department told her: “We thought that you are seeking gender equality.” Gender equality for this departmental head meant overworking the women such that they would have no time for other academic pursuits. Despite these difficulties the women were prudent in their judgments. When I asked them why they do not quit these tedious committees, each in her own way mentioned that these responsibilities were important training grounds and useful for mention in a curriculum vitae. However, they maintained that male academics were represented on the most prestigious committees and that publications carried more weight during promotion reviews than excellent teaching or involvement in several committees.

As a senior lecturer, Edna had served on several committees but was glad she no longer served on the examination committee. She expressed pity for those junior academics not so fortunate:

I would say that I have served on several committees in this university. . . . I am so glad that I no longer spend countless hours in the examination room. It is too demanding and I hated mathematics. . . . I sympathize with those serving in there [examination room] but it is part of the process. To move up the academic ranks these are some of the small prices one had to pay. . . . all professors in this university would testify that they all worked in that room. . . . Now that I am a senior I am involved in several other committees but not as physically demanding as examination committee.

In view of the excessive academic and administrative demands on the women’s time, their situation is made more complicated by the fact that they are expected to play other critical domestic roles as wives and mothers. Suffice to say here that the academic women, each in her own way, explained that they experienced both intra- and inter-role conflict at the university and at home. They have become experts in juggling roles and balancing acts but by the end of the day they are left with little or no time for working on academic publications. They were clear in their view that no amount of excellent teaching or service to university would lead to promotion, particularly to senior lectureship, without publications.

Processes of Exclusion

Unlike the North American universities where information concerning conferences, publications, seminars, research grants etc. is readily available through scholarly journals, membership in learned societies and associations, Internet, and other academic publications as well as display of such information on university bulletin boards and even on some faculty members’ office doors, this is not usually the case in the Kenyan university. Most of the women academics complained that they experienced career disadvantage because they lacked or were excluded from sources of information. Most of the women said that the universities they worked in did not own a press or even a single scholarly journal. Even when a university owned a journal the issues were short-lived due to lack of finances to maintain the subscriptions. Moreover, these journals were run by a clique of males who supported each other and a few of their female friends.

Due to lack of publishing houses or local journals both female and male academics are forced to look beyond the national borders if they are to get published. The women believed that this state of affairs favors male academics because most of them earned their graduate degrees or most of their education in western universities and as such were better informed as to which journals to send their papers to. More often than not most of the male academics were friends of male editors of international journals who also co-opted them as overseas members of the editorial board. Male academics, therefore, are better connected locally, regionally and internationally, and thus are more likely than women to get crucial academic information.

In view of the male academics’ connections with the western universities, they are more likely to be paid up members of learned associations and societies in the Northern hemisphere. Male academics, therefore, not only got access to publishing information but also controlled what information is to be shared publicly or through informal networks. What is ironic, however, is that even the few women academics who had earned their higher degrees in the western world did not seem well connected to the western academics or to be members of learned associations and societies in the western world. Nevertheless, I gathered stories of some few female academics who had succeeded in publishing not only because of the support of male academics but also because of their international affiliations. These women had earned their higher degrees in universities abroad and were active members of international bodies. They were reluctant to share information concerning publishing or conferences with other women academics. These women as Angela puts it “succeed by withholding information from other female colleagues whom they perceive as competitors.”

Academic women in this study maintained that publishing is a political act rooted in informal networks. The few academic journals available in East and Central Africa are male journals. The editors, the reviewers and male professors form a clique and it is not unusual to get some professors publishing again and again in successive issues as succinctly put by Edna:

[W]hether we accept it or not publishing is a political act. I have had a couple of my articles turned down on the pretext that they are poorly written . . . I can tell you Msingi Journal, or The Journal of East and Central Africa or even the International Journal of Comparative and International Education must give your article a favorable review, meet certain standards and articulate a certain point of view . . . If they [reviewers or editors] know you, your article might get a favorable review. Some men in this university went to school with some editors of prestigious journals in Europe or North America and they get their articles published often. If you are unknown your article is over scrutinized . . . Women lack connections. More often than not they are not members of learned societies or associations and as such do not receive information about call for papers or conferences. . . . In most cases men [academics] in this university are decisive as to who get published and who does not. We know of a few women here who get requested occasionally to contribute a chapter or an article . . . It is interesting, in fact funny that a mediocre male colleague got his articles published when mine was turned down . . . I had a chance of discussing with one of the male professors who is also an editor of an East African Journal who conceded that they sympathize with male colleagues who are in need of publications.

The women compared publishing to secret societies where only certain individuals are allowed in. In their view only chosen individuals were sponsored into certain academic journals while others were not. This point is aptly articulated by Maria, who was involved in two research projects during the time this research was conducted. When I asked her: “Are you involved in any research at the present time?” she reframed my question and then elaborated:

I think the critical question here is not whether I am involved in any research or not. I think the question you should be asking here is whether women get access to research funds, have access to information, access to current journals . . . who gets published and who doesn’t and why? Who attends conferences, seminars, workshops and who doesn’t and why. . . . When you get answers to these questions you will realize that it’s all politics. . . . To get into the publishing world you have to be supported, to be introduced, and coached by some experienced academic guru. . . . You need research funds and that too you need support. It is not automatic. . . . You also need flexibility in time for field work. . . . Things are changing. Donor agencies are demanding that before they dish research money to all these senior academics, they must involve a junior female as a co-researcher for capacity building. . . . I am a beneficiary of these changes. That is how I am lucky I am involved in these two research projects.

When I pushed Maria further on these issues it became quite clear that a kind of patron-client system was in operation in the Kenyan universities. Maria and others like her were very firm in their belief that to get ahead, even the male academics depended on academic patronage. Ability to publish was attributed to access to information, availability of research funds, hard work and sufficient time. Support by male academics was an added advantage. Women are rarely senior academics or power brokers in the university. Women were in a minority status and were also young professionally. Socio-cultural expectations dictate that men and women be “segregated” and so women academics are excluded from informal academic networks. They are thus cut off from important sources of information very necessary for career advancement.

Moreover, most of the informal information is shared in social places that career women are not expected to frequent. The academic women argued that a strong sexist culture existed in the Kenyan society where women who frequented social places like bars, unaccompanied, or accompanied are perceived as women of loose morals. Men are free to frequent all social places ranging from “Masandukuni” beer joints to the Sheraton Hotel, with no moral sanctions.[5] A strong male bonding/fraternity existed in the universities so that it was a common practice, for example, for a young junior male academic to invite old and experienced male professors for drinks and nyama choma parties without any strain. Conversely, it would be difficult for a female academic, whatever her designation or marital status, to invite male colleagues to social places without risking the invitation being misunderstood as a sexual invitation. In any case, these parties are often held at times when women are expected to be at home. A married woman would need her husband’s permission to be out late at night. Meanwhile, men participated in social interactions where academic ideas are exchanged and information about conferences, seminars, research funds and even tips on how to get into the right books, get published and get promoted are leaked. From these interactions academic networks and associations are formed.

Atieno, a senior lecturer, captured this exclusion of academic women vividly:

The information does not get to the women academics because they are limited. Most of the times men meet for nyama choma after work hours. Women, particularly married women are not expected to frequent drinking places. Even when not prohibited there is the moral question. . . . Some academic things get discussed there. . . . I believe a man feels comfortable to release information to another man . . . They [men] say: “women have crooked words” meaning that women seldom keep secrets. Popular wisdom, like that of the Agikuyu people, tell us “Mundu wa kuiya na mutumia akenaga akua” [translated to mean if you steal with a woman you will only be relieved when she dies]. . . . Since women are absent from these sources of information, they do not get it. . . . In these informal meetings the men discuss and plot together. . . . When they come for staff meetings, they have already agreed on certain positions. They speak in one voice. . . . This is how they build each other and maintain academic power. . . . You know in our society whether we deny or accept it, we still believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen . . . therefore, if you are somebody’s wife he will leave you home. . . . If there is any information he is supposed to bring it to you.

From Atieno’s narrative a picture emerges as to why women’s academic careers stagnate. As women they are expected to belong to the private domain just like their mothers and sisters. A man as the breadwinner and head of the family is expected to play the public role, bringing home information as well as perfecting his career. Academic women, just like their illiterate sisters who work tirelessly in the corn fields, are constructed as male dependents, and, therefore, are not seen as needing or deserving academic promotions as much as the men. They too are expected to wait for information to trickle down to them.

The academic women were aware that it was a contradiction in terms to expect women with such amounts of education, exposure and experience to fit into the prescribed role of a “traditional housewife”. This expectation in their view was an exercise of male privilege, domination and social control. Edna, who acquired her PhD. from a prestigious university in England, critiqued the exclusion of academic women from social places as a sham. She managed alone for four years in England, but now she was not treated as a responsible adult. She lamented: “Who controlled my movement, my morality while in England? It is all too ironical.”

This exclusion and social control of academic women is not peculiar to Kenya. Obbo (1980) witnessed the same pattern in her study of Ugandan women. She observed:

Professional women became further trapped in double standards that distinguished “good” and “bad” women. . . . It was particularly difficult for married as well as unmarried women to go out to bars or restaurants and enjoy themselves alone or with friends, males or females without being suspected of being prostitutes. Some resorted to advertising their motherhood by packing their children into the Mercedes Benz, Peugeot or Citröen and driving around the town. (Obbo, 1980, 14).

Even the possession of a PhD. does not unlock the doors for academic women. Sophia, an associate professor with a doctorate, narrated to me an incident where she had spent a whole day at a workshop with male colleagues in her department. At the end of the day she gave two junior male colleagues and a senior male academic a ride in her car. They asked her to drop them at a certain social joint (drinking place). They bade her and another female colleague good-bye. When she inquired why the women were not invited to summarize the day socially since they had spent the whole day working together, the response dismayed her: “He told me, these places are not ideal for women of your caliber and we thought you may not be interested. . . . In any case we thought you may want to get home early.”

The absence of women is apparent even within university physical social spaces. During my fieldwork observations, the absence of the females from the senior common rooms was remarkable. I recollect vividly the loneliness and uneasiness I experienced in the senior common room of one of the universities. Men walked in and out sometimes alone or in groups. Usually they engaged each other in animated discussions and I thought about joining in. But being the only female I refrained from doing so. I became self conscious about my presence there and hoped other women might come in to neutralize my feelings of being in a minority. After some time, two women entered the common room and sat at a table near mine. I was relieved. I became more comfortable and I was able to listen to their discussion (which was carried on in low voices) as well as hear what the men were arguing about in loud voices.

What was interesting about this observation is that even the discussions and the spaces we occupied were gendered. Men sat or stood near the counter, arguing and teasing each other about their work. The two women sat at a corner near where I was sitting and their discussion centered on family matters. Rarely did I come across two academic women in the senior common rooms I visited discussing academic work. The following field notes may serve to highlight further women’s exclusion from academic networks:

I arrived a few minutes to 3 p.m. I sit in one of the corners so that I could not be too obtrusive and at the same time, I wanted to have a good vantage point. The place is clean. Comfortable seats are in place except for two long tables (which I later gathered were used for indoor games). The atmosphere is very relaxing, very good music. . . . Men enter in twos, threes or simply in a group. Some stand others sit. They shake hands, laugh, hug and talk in loud voices. . . . At the counter all types of drinks are displayed neatly. Tusker, Pilsner, whisky, coke, etc. . . I noticed most of the men are drinking beer and some coke or something else. . . . Three women enter and I am happy that I am not the only woman in the room. They make themselves comfortable at a table near mine. . . . I notice two of them being served soft drinks and one tea. . . . I overhear mentions of children. . . . school, homework . . . I decide to pay more attention. I wonder whether I should join them . . . at this time I become keenly aware of my presence in this place. I feel guilty that I am spying on people. . . . I feel the odd person out. . . . I wonder why men and women segregate even when in one room . . . I notice new groups forming. Some groups speak in very low tones, others in high tones. . . then suddenly I hear a tap on my shoulder. It’s my friend from the Sociology Department. He knew I was waiting for him. He apologizes for being late. We discuss about work, family, my presence there . . . then I ask him why are there so few women here? He looked surprised. He looks around then answers, “Career women are not normally expected to be in public places. It is not considered to be right. . . . They must exercise some discretion.” I become more and more convinced of how deep gender stereotyping is entrenched. Women must be home while boys socialize, network and deliberate on issues. (Field Notes, March 16, 1993)

Even when women are included in academic networks, it is on male terms. Some of the women who had worked with men believed that the only reason why women were being asked to be co-researchers with senior male academics was due to changed funding policies. The international donor agencies, to promote capacity-building, were insisting on only funding research in which junior female academics were co-researchers. Although these women felt this was a positive move and would indeed give them a chance to develop their research skills, they also expressed feelings of anxiety and despair. To fit into the “boys club” they had to deal with sexist jokes, derogatory remarks that contained constant reminders that after all, they are women, and they even had to familiarize themselves with male games like football. Anna, one of these academics, told me of how she had to force herself to watch football or other men’s programs on television because every time the team met for research progress reviews, the first few minutes would be devoted to discussion of such interests. But whatever social and personal sacrifices and adjustments the women made, they felt they were still not quite accepted. As Anna put it: “They [men] invite you in but at the same time make it too difficult for you to stay in. They make you feel an outsider within the university. They leave us in an ambiguous state.” Anna argued that physical inclusion in discussions or research projects does not guarantee actual participation. In her words: “Women are expected to accompany men as `handbags’ but not to challenge or contradict them. They are expected to listen and compliment.” Other women gave several examples of incidents at workshops, seminars, or research project meetings where they could rarely be heard and the male academics ended up speaking to themselves.

Wanja, another such woman brought onto a research team, gave up trying to be part of these networks after experiencing psychological exclusion:

You have to be extraordinarily strong to maintain your hold in some of these committees. You have to deal with the perception that you are a woman and therefore different from your male colleagues . . . most of the times you are the only woman in a big meeting. Then you attend some of the workshops there are two or three of us women. You speak your point of view. They [participants] are quiet, as if you have said nothing . . . I remember for example a workshop we attended four years ago. I hoped to raise some research concerns. . . I did not think that research funds were fairly distributed . . . I did not raise the issue. The climate was not right . . . What I hated most was the way they [male] academics would whisper, beckon to each other as if in a form of conspiracy. . . . You are only expected attend the workshop to ascertain their point of view. They call each other aside to discuss as if you are a stranger . . . these days even when they invite me I don’t attend. I have refused to be a cheerleader.

From Wanja’s account we realize that these women are not mere victims. They are active subjects. Realizing that her presence in these workshops was not beneficial and that her inclusion was only symbolic, she consciously withdrew. She refused to be “a cheerleader”. Although this act was an important political statement, it impacts negatively on Wanja’s career development. In search of self dignity and identity she cuts herself off from a research network useful for development of skills, ideas, future publications and sponsorship into the position of an honorary male.

Wanja is in a double bind. Whichever exit she chooses she is bound to lose. Even if she chose not to withdraw there is not evidence to show that she might have progressed. Her presence on the committee, however token, would be used to justify claims of gender equality within the system. This would imply her participation in perpetuation and maintenance of her own oppression and that of other academic women. Alternatively, her resistance to oppression and her eventual withdrawal can be used to further the view that women cannot take a challenge or perform even when given an opportunity. In fact Wanja explained that around her university she is usually pointed out as a woman who cannot take academic challenges. Her withdrawal is perceived by male academics as a sign of weakness and personal failure, and her behavior is said to be typical of all women.

This exclusion of academic women from academic networks and their subsequent career disadvantage are discussed by O’Leary and Mitchell (1990). Although they are writing about American academic women I find their findings support my own. They report that high research productivity depends greatly on collaboration. They argue that male scientists are better connected than female scientists. Women are rarely sought out by their male counterparts and thus their publication rates remain lower than that of men. Advantages of networking have been reported for men, who say that informal conversations with colleagues are their primary source of ideas and inspirations. O’Leary and Mitchell show that as far back as the 17th century, networks of academics (“invisible colleges”) existed. The members of the network functioned as gatekeepers controlling finances, reputations, and the fate of new scientific ideas.

Toren (1991) has noted the same pattern of women’s exclusion from academic networks in Israel and the powerful effects of social interactions, mutual perceptions, stereotypes, expectations and collaboration:

The nature and rate of interaction and research collaboration between faculty women and men in academic institutions are strongly influenced by mutual perceptions, stereotypes, expectations and evaluation of performance as well as by propositional sex composition. In most scientific work most of the important factors contributing to accomplishment and success are the interaction and exchange of ideas among colleagues. Individuals who are excluded from these formal and informal networks (invisible colleges) usually perform less well and are less productive . . . Those who comprise the numerical minority, and have inferior diffuse status encounter resistance on the part of the majority to accept them as equals. In the academic work setting, this means that women would be isolated to some extent from these informal networks, financial and psychological support, performance opportunities and power. (Toren, 1991, 169)

It is important to note at this point that the few Kenyan women in positions of senior lecturers and professors (63 out of 454 women) (see table 1) were scattered across departments, campuses and colleges which were geographically miles apart. The universities lacked crucial communication systems such as telephones and e-mail which made it difficult for women to share information or support one another. Unlike female academics, the males were found in all departments and in all ranks including the administrative circles. With their large numbers, buttressed by an existence of a strong male culture, male academics supported each other and had greater probabilities of upward mobility than their women colleagues.

Academic Mentoring/Sponsorship

The women repeatedly linked their slow production rates and subsequent slowed promotion rates to the lack of an academic mentor or sponsor. A good relationship between a junior academic and a senior academic was referred to as a “catalyst” or “passport” to success in academia. The women believed that it was particularly difficult for them to establish and maintain a good working relationship over time with mentors/sponsors (senior academics) who are overwhelmingly male.

Mentorship is as old as society. According to Webster’s New International Dictionary, a mentor is a wise and faithful counselor. A mentor is one who gives advice, states guidelines, warns of faults and instructs. Gitterman (1986), elaborating on this definition, sees mentorship as an intense relationship between someone who is knowledgeable in a specific discipline and a novice in the field. A mentor helps the mentee sort out his/her thoughts in a non-judgmental way. A mentor advises and encourages the novice to get on during the initial stages of career development. A keen interest in professional growth augments a personal interest in the mentee’s career.

It is this kind of close, non-judgmental, personal relationship with a wise guru or academic godfather or godmother who instructs, guides, supports, etc. that some of the academic women in this study complained they lacked. The feeling was strong among these academic women that in comparison with their male colleagues, they were given less support, not taken seriously, ignored, trivialized and targeted for blame. The women explained that being someone’s “boy”, being in the right books, and being loyal to certain academic gatekeepers were some of the enablers of career development.

The women maintained that senior male academics preferred to sponsor their own kind. They told me of cases where their male colleagues were promoted faster than they were because they received favorable recommendations, information, and social support from senior male academics which were not readily available to the women academics. Sometimes women benefited indirectly. Angela, a senior academic, told me about a classic case of males sponsoring males. Her male colleague was being sought out for sponsorship and promotion, but since she was more qualified than the male colleague, the department had no choice other than to promote both of them. In her words:

In an ideal situation, the stated criteria should be followed . . . but I feel in this university the more lobbying, the more connected you are, the more close you are to these people [professors] the better your chances. . . . I will provide you with an example here. In 1987, I memorably remember that I was due for promotions in my department together with another colleague who incidentally is my friend. . . . We completed our Masters together in this department [where this interview was conducted.] . . . through the grapevine this male colleague learnt that we were expected to have published or presented some academic papers in the departmental seminars. We were also supposed to have defended our Ph.D. proposals. . . . Neither the chairman nor the dean of the faculty had made this information available to me. Nevertheless, this colleague of mine shared this precious information with me. . . . We quickly decided to write and present papers to beat the deadline. . . . His presentation was scheduled earlier than mine. During this presentation, I will never forget that day. The seminar room was packed to capacity. The chairman of our department, a full professor and a personal friend of my colleague had invited all the full professors and senior academics not only in our department but from the whole Faculty of Arts. . . . they had all gathered to hear my colleague’s presentation. . . . Incidentally the chairman of our department supervised this colleague of mine’s Master’s thesis. . . . You know how men build each other.

. . . But to my surprise when the day came for my presentation, the attendance was poor. The conspicuous absentees were my chairman and his fellow friends. . . . I felt slighted, but the presentation went well. . . . However, I got promoted along with my colleague. . . . I later came to gather that the chairman was pushing for the promotion of his “boy”, my colleague, and since I had outperformed him in my Master’s grade they had no choice than to promote both of us. . . . That is why I tell you that promotions in this university are not fair. It depends on who knows who.

From Angela’s narration it becomes quite clear that junior male academics are singled out for mentorship. As Angela tells us, “the chairman of the department dragged all senior academics to witness and support this colleague of mine.” This amounts to sponsored mobility. Conversely, women academics get a raw deal. During Angela’s presentation, the chairman conveniently absented himself and attendance was poor. This amounts to sex discrimination. Angela was only promoted because they could not find a better way to explain or dismiss her qualifications. Her story suggests that for a woman to be promoted to the same rank with a man, her accomplishments must be clearly better than his.

This devaluation of women’s accomplishments has its origins in the prevalent Kenyan gender ideology. A strong patriarchal cultural system exists that condones abusive gender communication and even allows open expression of hostility and contempt for women. It is not uncommon to hear or read statements from members of parliament or cabinet ministers devaluing women. For example in 1979 when members of parliament were debating the failed Marriage and Divorce Bill, Mr. Wabuge, one of the parliamentarians, and an ex-ambassador of Kenya to the United Nations, stated that a wife should be beaten as it was a pleasure to her, and a way of expressing love in Luhya [one of the ethnic communities] customs: “If you beat your wife probably after doing something wrong, it would only be by accident if you break her ribs,” he told the house (Asiyo, 1989, 45). To my surprise, during my discussion and interviews some Luyhia women seemed to subscribe to this idea. In 1991 Mulu Mutisya, a cabinet minister, told another minister: “You are like a wayward wife and your position can only be occupied by a woman” (Maina, 1992, 14), while in the same year Nicholas Biwott, one of the powerful ministers, described members of an opposition party as behaving like women rejected by men who group together in search of clients (Maina, 1992, 2). Arap Soi, another cabinet minister summarized: “Women must be forever led. It is quite absurd and perturbing the way modern women are clamoring for public office . . . contrary to the important considerations of the natural law” (Maina, 1992, 11). These archetypal chauvinists got the support and blessing of none other than the former president “his excellency” Daniel Toroitich Arab Moi who on 12 December 1991, during a Jamuhuri Day (Kenya’s independence day) address, told the crowds that the flow of authority in an African society was clear. Women never surpassed men (Maina, 1992, 1).

The lack of support for Kenyan women academics echoes findings in both European and North American studies. Reskin (1978), Fox (1989), O’Leary and Mitchell (1990), Moore and Sagaria (1991), The Chilly Climate Collective (1995) all show that: women are unsupported; that men support one another; that women are excluded from male academic networks; that women experience a chilly climate; that women lack mentors and sponsors and as a result they lack informal information and resources, and are shut off from job prospects, research information and professional opportunity and services. These studies identify the important role played by a mentor in the professional life of a mentee. Sponsors or career gatekeepers are seen as extremely valuable for one’s upward achievement. Corcoran and Clark (1986) specifically stress that the academic gatekeeper plays an important role in introducing promising and favored protégés to powerful circles of colleagues, promoting them, showing them the ropes, and providing opportunities to operate successfully among the powerful.

Thesis Supervision and Student Responses

Even when women have an impeccable academic record and are indeed promoted to senior academic ranks, their promotions do not bring the prestige, power, role or status commensurate with their positions. Their status continues to be determined by negative stereotypical images about women in general. They continue to accumulate career disadvantage through the numerous acts of academic exclusion. As an example, women are rarely chosen as university thesis supervisors.

The women maintained that supervision of either a Master’s or PhD thesis was an added advantage for one’s lateral and vertical career development. The supervision process provided an ample opportunity to generate, share and try out new ideas and thus sharpen intellectual skills and establish academic clout and sometimes lifetime friendships. The women believed that thesis supervision helped one to gain courage, confidence, and broaden academic horizons and in this way acquire the necessary experience to proclaim academic authority. The number of candidates an individual successfully supervised was seen as an important factor in boosting one’s academic social and personal esteem. It was also an important factor particularly if one was to put herself/himself forward for further promotions.

Maria showed her bitterness:

Selection or appointment is not a neutral act. In some departments the chairmen of departments allocate or choose supervisors for students. . . . I am tempted to believe that the heads of departments assign thesis supervision to their friends . . . those colleagues they believed were more qualified. . . . In other departments the students choose their supervisors but their choice must be ratified, sanctioned by departmental head and postgraduate committees. . . . The fact that I have been in this department for ten years and as the only specialist in [my field] and no one has approached me for supervision makes me believe [here she laughs] that these people [both male academic and students] do not believe that I am capable.

From Maria’s narration we begin to see that even being a specialist in a certain field does not boost a woman’s status. Maria is the only specialist in her department in a particular area and for ten years she has not been asked to supervise even a Master’s project. She was conscious of the fact that her knowledge was under question. She felt “these people do not believe that I am capable.”

The women gave me several examples of men who had equivalent qualifications to their own but were involved in thesis supervision while the women were not. The women felt that they were discriminated against on the basis of their gender. At one university, for example, Sophia, a lecturer, personally introduced me to two of her male colleagues, who she later told me held Master’s degrees as she did. She, however, was employed in the university two years before they were hired. Nevertheless, those two colleagues had supervised at least three student projects. She felt that she was overlooked. She expressed dissatisfaction with the secrecy and speed at which supervision was allocated. Although she considered these two male colleagues to be her friends, she only found out by sheer accident that they were supervising these projects. She felt slighted by the co-coordinator of the relevant program, a person she had thought was her friend and supporter over the years.

From the women’s evidence it was clear that both students (even females) and senior male academics preferred male supervisors to female supervisors. Sopiato, a senior lecturer, speaking from her own personal experience of exclusion, perceived the reasons why women were not preferred as thesis supervisors or committee members as follows:

As the only woman and a senior lecturer in this department for now three years, it has become clear to me that even female students are not attracted to female professors. . . . I have witnessed over the years both male and female students constantly consult my male colleagues. . . . I have learnt that students are looking for powerful well connected and reputable professors who can later prop them in the job market. . . . Women academics are not that well connected to the outside world. . . . Secondly, there is this feeling, how can you be supervised by a woman? . . . Our society is male dominated and women are not really seen as knowledgeable . . . few students and even fewer males would opt for a female supervisor. . . . A couple of women students have requested me to sit on their committees but not a single male student has ever approached me.

Sopiato’s marginalization is even more pronounced because even the women students were also looking for established, well connected academics whose reputation and social contacts would give them an easy passage into the job market. It is common knowledge that students supervised by certain academic heavyweights get hired as tutorial fellows in the university immediately after completion of their Master’s thesis. Others have been sponsored for jobs outside the university on their basis of their being students of Professor X or Y. The majority of the women academics maintained that they were constrained because they were not well connected with the political system. They had no academic influence and their impact was rarely felt at the university or in the outside society. As women, they were perceived as subordinates whether they were professors or graduate assistants. Students’ actions and choices of male supervisors, prudent as they may appear, impact negatively on women’s academic careers. This kind of situation made many academic women I encountered express a sense of being outsiders.

The women suffered tensions, anxiety, vexation and serious self doubts as they tried to reconcile their contradictory and ambivalent existences. They were happy that they were university lecturers, earned a high salary, conducted successful seminars and lectures, but at the same time they were unhappy that their abilities were not recognized. Some felt that since they were excluded from thesis supervision, they were not clear whether they were despised, liked, valued or devalued as persons or as academics. They witnessed the same clique of males travel from conference to conference, workshop to workshop and supervise almost all the theses in the faculty.

The women’s fears, anxieties and ambivalences were compounded by the fact women were not normally expected to be highly qualified. The women felt that they were perceived as an anomaly by the majority of the students and by some male academics. Some women narrated to me incidents where they believed they were unfairly booed, asked to go home or shouted at to Waacha Urembo [stop behaving like a model] by students in the lecture theatres simply because of their gender. The women believed that in the minds of the students all academics and particularly doctors and professors are all males. A number of women told me of cases where they were perplexed by students’ reactions. Some students went to their offices expecting to find male professors only to be embarrassed when they realize the lecturer they had come to see was a woman. Maria’s experience illustrates this position:

Before I established myself in one of the child development courses, I faced a lot of hostility. It was a second year course. As soon as I entered the lecture theatre, the room would be filled with boos and shouts of “go home, go home”. I was not surprised because I did my undergraduate in this university [university where she was teaching and where this interview was conducted] and I remember we used to send home lecturers who did not deliver their lectures well. . . . I was however surprised when on another day the students shouted Waacha Urembo [stop modeling/being feminine]. I realized there was a gender angle in this shouting. . . . Some two first year students came to my office. They wanted to see Dr. Domingo. Incidentally Domingo is my husband’s name and I believe these students expected to meet a male. . . . I cannot forget the pangs of pain I experienced when these students asked me politely whether they could see Dr. Domingo. . . . After it dawned to them I was Dr. Domingo, they could not hide their frustrations. One went as far as asking “Are you really Dr. Domingo”? . . . I was hurt. . . . One said “I am sure it’s a mistake.” They apologized and left. . . . Three days later one of the students returned to my office, apologizing that they had been informed that the geography professor was a male. . . . We sorted out the mess and I advised the students on the course prerequisites.

This anecdote tells us that women are not expected to be university professors. Students’ attitudes can be best understood by considering the situation of the majority of Kenyan women. Most Kenyan women are illiterate and of the few who work in the formal sector, the majority are secretaries, nurses and primary school teachers (Republic of Kenya, 1993). These students may not have encountered many female teachers in their advanced levels, particularly if they were in a boys only school. They therefore could not possibly understand how a woman could be a university professor. This unequal gender ideology perpetuated in the Kenyan society leads these students to ask “Are you really Dr. Domingo?”

Rathgeber (1991) corroborates the findings in this study. In her study on women physicians in Kenya she found that female medical doctors were slighted by their patients who referred to them as “nurse” or “sister.” This indicates that societal stereotypical attitudes determine how women in professions were perceived and treated.

Sexual Harassment

Maintaining a good relationship with one’s academic or university supervisor was repeatedly cited as a crucial asset to an individual’s career progress. Academic supervisors were perceived as potential career mentors. They play an important role particularly in the hiring and the promotion process for their students. Their reference letters were considered to be invaluable. However, a majority of the academic women complained that they did not enjoy a close working relationship with their male supervisors. The women told me stories of how their studies were slowed down or had to be stopped in order to sort out differences between themselves and their supervisors. Most of their differences were sparked by sexual advances, sexist jokes, passes and comments which made it difficult to manage the day-to-day working relationship. Some were forced to change supervisors, or to keep off the university premises for a time. Anna narrated to me how her supervisor, a man she completely trusted, all of a sudden developed a sexual interest in her. He went as far as suggesting marrying her while he was already a married man. Her being skilled and strong in character helped her ward off these unwanted sexual advances. She and her supervisor then had to renegotiate their working relationship all over again. They decided to recruit a male friend of her supervisor to act as a buffer, and under his direction, Anna completed her Master’s thesis. However, the credit for supervision went to the man who harassed her because he was the assigned university professor. Anna told me that she did not officially complain because if she did, she would be ridiculed as a stupid woman who cannot take jokes and who publicly tells everything. Speaking out or complaining about such acts would be seen as a sign of weakness. A woman is expected to carry herself “decently”, meaning that she is not a “big mouth”. In any case women are expected to accept and even be happy that somebody is attracted to them.

The majority of the women decried the advantage male professors take of them. They argued that it was not likely that a woman would complete a thesis process without some bruises. If supervisors make sexual advances and you turn them down, they could dismiss you as a weak candidate. Angela ruefully remembers her own experience:

I liked my supervisor a lot. My colleague used to tell me that I was lucky to be supervised by him. He was concerned and used to prod me ahead . . .But one day I took my work to his office. He beckoned me to sit on a sofa beside him. My senses told me something was very wrong. . . . I could not believe my senses. I was utterly shocked by what was unfolding. . . . He touched me and I told him that I was married. He told me that he is also married. . . . I told him I was probably more married than him. I brandished my wedding ring hoping to convince him. . . . In fact I had just gotten married, about six months ago and he was one of the invited guests. . . . You are afraid to report these incidences. It only makes life difficult for you. You become a laughing stock. . . . It is extremely difficult, painful and disorienting because it is from the same supervisor you may be expected to get a recommendation for further training or for promotion purposes.

Angela, who described herself as hardworking and a no-nonsense academic, shared with me that her promotion from tutorial fellowship to the position of a lecturer has been delayed for years. This delay was a result of psychological and sexual harassment from her thesis supervisor. She tried to be tactful and skillfully turn his abuses into light-hearted jokes, hoping that he might understand and stop misbehaving. She also did not want to jeopardize her academic career: “All I wanted was to complete my Masters and forget this man. I used to pretend that I did not understand his insinuations. I played dumb but that did not help.”

The last straw was when this man one day went to her office. He did not go into her office even though she opened the door and ushered him in. He stood by the door. He did not make any effort to close the door behind him and after a brief conversation, he twisted everything and told her “I know you do not like poor men like me. You only date rich men. I understand that you now drive a Subaru.” Angela told me she felt as if she was completely undressed in a market place. She was sure her colleagues in adjacent offices or passing by must have overheard this nasty talk. She was so offended and hurt that she could not hold herself together. In tears she passed through the departmental secretary’s office and told her “I am quitting this program. Professor Xuma has been harassing me and I cannot take it any more.”

However, after thinking seriously about the problem, she went to her department the following morning determined not to quit. She officially reported the matter to the departmental head who advised her to forget the issue and quickly changed supervisors for Angela. This was tantamount to beginning her thesis project all over again. It took her four years to complete her Master’s degree instead of the usual two years. During the interview, it became quite clear that although Angela had decided to concentrate on the future, she was worried that her former supervisor, as one of the senior professors in her department, might negatively influence her promotion.

The respondents’ voices suggest that sexual harassment is a common phenomenon in the Kenyan universities. However, since gender is not a politicized issue in these universities, terms like “sexual harassment” or measures like sexual harassment policies are nonexistent. Unwanted sexual advances, according to the respondents, are seen as part of what happens in a working environment and not something to worry about. The women are not expected to complain and if they do they might jeopardize their own reputation and status.

But it is clear that the women do not like it and they employ certain strategies like playing dumb, turning the advances into jokes or being tactful in an attempt to ward off these advances. The women knew very well that if they had to report these incidents, it would only be to other senior males who might neither understand nor sympathize. They even feared that they might be blamed. This chilly climate is very unsettling and destroys the congenial relationships expected in a university. The women are put on the defensive. Some women told me that they keep away from certain sexist male colleagues who have a reputation for harassing women. This avoidance approach, though the most logical thing to do, may work to the detriment of women’s career advancement. As we discussed earlier, academic women are excluded from male academic networks, but at times women manage to extract useful information from some of their colleagues. If women increase their social and physical distance, they may be completely cut off from the politics of the university and cut off from informal sources of information.

The dilemma here is that the majority of the women told me that they had to frequently consult with their male colleagues on certain academic matters. They also complained that some of these males harass them sexually and would prefer to consult with their own menfolk even if they are mediocre. The question that remains unanswered here is how these women academics can escape their predicament. They seem trapped in a double bind. To consult with their male colleague and in fact to maintain a working relationship may mean their getting access to some beneficial information. However, this consultation may be abused and turned into sexual harassment.

Conclusions

From the respondents’ analyses I argue in this paper that most of the academic women believe that the University is unfair and undemocratic. They maintain that they are perceived and treated as outsiders within the academe. They are marginalized in academe. Their careers develop at a slower rate compared with that of their male colleagues. Their ideas are excluded in shaping the university policies. They are also excluded from the university leadership. Women abilities and accomplishments are challenged, undermined and devalued. Their lives are also constrained by a strong male culture in the university as well as in the general society. Women are first perceived in their biological roles as mothers, wives, girlfriends and are only accepted as male helpmates. Inadvertently they are relegated to what I refer as a academic house wives. They not only experience psychological and sexual harassment from their male colleagues but abusive communication and negative attitudes that make the academic climate less congenial and less collegial. This hostile climate affects academic women’s productivity. Lack of productivity in turn serve to confirm that women do not belong to the academe.

However, these women do not capitulate to the patriarchal design in the Kenyan academe. In this paper, I show that these women employ various strategies to make the academe work for them. As resilient social actors, they subvert, resist, adapt and appropriate the strong male culture in Kenyan academe in an effort to create spaces for self definition and personal empowerment. The thesis of this paper therefore, is that although Kenyan academic women experience a host of barriers put on their way some do survive and thrive.

Notes

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Citation Format:

Njoki M. Kamau. “Outsiders Within: Experiences of Kenyan Women in Higher Education,” JENDA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: Issue 6, 2004.

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