Gender equality

Abstract

Gender equality means a social order in which men and women share the same opportunities and the same constraints in the economic, social and political realms of life. There is very little doubt if, ever there was, that in these spheres women have historically been accorded treatment that is less than favourable than that given to men. The difference has been based on nothing intrinsic except the sexual or biological distinction between male and female. Society generally has used the sexual difference to ascribe certain roles and entitlements to men and women. Invariably this assignment of roles based on sex has projected the spectre of inferiority, unworthiness, negativity over women while associating men with the complete opposite. While this role-assignment springs from the inherently patriarchal nature of the Kenyan society, it has however found a fertile nurturing ground in important institutions in the society such as the law. Contrary to the ideal, Kenyan law has not been neutral. It has assumed and in fact reinforced gendered differences in the society. By buttressing patriarchy the law has been transformed into a tool for exclusion. It is the realization of the intrinsically discriminative nature of law led to initiatives to reform the law to ensure equality of men and women. These putative changes while undoubtedly instigated from within were also significantly informed by drifts in the international field especially with respect to human rights.1 Reform of the law sought to achieve both formal and substantive equality. The former case involved textual changes in the law to secure the recognition and enforcement of fundamental guarantees of women, such as the constitutional amendment that barred discrimination on the basis of sex.