The Wanjiku metonomy: Challenging gender stereotypes in Kenya’s editorial cartoons

Abstract

Following the post-election violence that rocked the country in 2007/8, critics blamed the media for their role in abetting and fanning the violence. However, as the crisis deepened, the media rose above petty identities and affiliations and began spirited campaigns for peace, reconciliation and reflection. Specifically, this study highlights a series of editorial cartoons that appeared in the Daily Nation, East Africa’s largest circulating paper, and how they framed the event from a gender perspective. The study focuses on how five editorial cartoons appropriated Maxine Molyneux’s concept of “combative motherhood” through the metaphorical image of one Kenyan woman, Wanjiku. Emerging from the political discourse surrounding the clamour for a new constitution in Kenya far back in the late 90s, Wanjiku soon became a metonym for the common and average Kenyan citizen. Come 2008, she emerges in the editorial cartoons when the country was literally burning; challenging several rigid conceptions of gender. Using a critical approach to media framing, the study reveals how images of the empowered mother reconstruct and redefine the place of women in both the social and symbolic spheres.