INTERROGATING MASCULINITIES IN SELECTED KENYAN POPULAR FICTION By ANTONY ...

166 Pages·2017·0.54 MB·English

INTERROGATING MASCULINITIES IN SELECTED KENYAN POPULAR FICTION
By
ANTONY MUKASAMATE
Submitted in accordance with the requirements
for the Degree of
DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY
in the subject
THEORY OF LITERATURE
at the
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA
SUPERVISOR: DR RA NORTHOVER
JULY2017
Declaration
I declare that Interrogating Masculinities in Selected Kenyan Popular Fiction, is my own work
and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by
means of complete references.
……………………….. ………………………..
A.M.MATE DATE
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Acknowledgements
I would like to recognise the following people who made it possible for me to research and write
this thesis: my supervisor, Dr Alan Northover and Mrs Napaai at the UNISA Library who
assisted me with research materials. Moreover, I appreciate the immense support UNISA has
given me through its bursary programme. I would also like to thank my family for the moral and
financial support. Finally, I would like to thank God for giving me the gift of well being.
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Abstract
Interrogating Masculinities in Selected Kenyan Popular Fiction
By
Antony Mukasa Mate
The purpose of this study is to examine the presentation of masculinity in selected popular
works. The novels under discussion include: Henry ole Kulet’s To Become a Man (1972), Yusuf
Dawood’s One Life Too Many (1991), Peter Kimani’s Before the Rooster Crows (2002) and
David Maillu’s Man from Machakos (2010). The writers are representative of a diversity of
Kenyan ethnicities: Dawood (Asian-African), while the rest comprise Kenyan men of black
descent though different ethnicities. The study attempts to interrogate the various strands of
masculinity in Kenyan society as presented in the selected works. The study also seeks to
investigate how different men negotiate/manifest their masculinity in different settings. It also
interrogates factors and trends that shape and influence masculine behaviour in the selected texts.
The study also explores the ramifications of various manifestations of masculinity on the family.
The study adopts masculinities theory as the theoretical framework. The theory is applied in the
interpretation of issues that relateto this study.
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Key Terms:
Masculinity, Gender, Patriarchy, Feminism, Popular works, Hegemony, Subordinate, Patriarchy,
Gender Construction.
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Table of Contents
Declaration......................................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................iii
Abstract..........................................................................................................................................iv
Key Terms:......................................................................................................................................v
Table of Contents...........................................................................................................................vi
Chapter One..................................................................................................................................1
The Problem, Research Goals and Conceptual Foundation............................................................1
Statement of the problem..............................................................................................................13
Objectives of the Study.................................................................................................................13
Research Questions.......................................................................................................................13
Research Assumptions..................................................................................................................14
Justification for the Study.............................................................................................................14
Literature Review..........................................................................................................................15
Theoretical Framework.................................................................................................................21
Methodology.................................................................................................................................27
Organisation of the study..............................................................................................................28
Chapter Two................................................................................................................................29
Masculinity in Henry ole Kulet’s To Become a Man....................................................................29
The Gendered Social, Historical and Cultural Context of Maasai Masculinity...........................30
Rebellion or Revolution: Masculinities and Cultural Conflict.....................................................38
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................59
Chapter Three.............................................................................................................................61
White Masculinity in Yusuf Dawood’s One Life Too Many........................................................61
Socio-Historical Context of Colonial Kenyan Society.................................................................67
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“Reversal of Fortunes”: Diminishing White Power and the Rising Black Other.........................71
Conclusion....................................................................................................................................90
Chapter Four...............................................................................................................................92
Post-colonial Black Masculinity in the Metropolis: Peter Kimani’s Before the Rooster Crows..92
Re (Historicizing) Post-colonial Kenyan Black Masculinity........................................................93
The Price of Manhood..................................................................................................................98
“Encounter with the Female Matador”: Reversed Roles............................................................108
Masculinity as a Tragic Mode.....................................................................................................111
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................117
Chapter Five..............................................................................................................................119
Breaking Barriers: Post-Colonial Rural Masculinity in David Maillu’s Man from Machackos 119
A Famished Existence.................................................................................................................120
Behave like a “Real Man”: The Father Figure and Construction of Masculinity.......................128
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................140
Chapter Six................................................................................................................................142
Summary of Major Findings.......................................................................................................142
Bibliography..............................................................................................................................149
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Chapter One
The Problem, Research Goals and Conceptual Foundation
Issues of gender have been on the centre stage globally for many years. Initial major concerns on
gender have focused more on the subjugation of women. However, recent gender studies have
also included men. Thus there has been an emerging field of men and masculinities worldwide to
address the issues affecting men. Scholars worldwide have begun addressing this issue; Connell
(1995; 2002), Kimmel (1987), Messner (1992) and Seidler (2010) in the West. In the Caribbean,
scholars like Lewis (2009) and Reddock (2004) have extensively interrogated Caribbean
masculinities.
Various scholars have strived to explain why studies on masculinities have been put on the
periphery while there has been a proliferation of studies on women. Crous (2005) points out that
the proliferation of an interest in issues pertaining to men and the role within a new genderised
perspective on society necessitated the need for studies in masculinities. He notes that gender
studies that focused on women’s issues have now expanded to include all facets of gender
inquiry, including masculinity. Unfortunately, studies on masculinities have not been given
considerable focus. Chow (2003) argues that gender studies should include both men and
women, so as better to understand the gender dynamics in the society. She notes that: “Gender is
relational and social: hence the focus of gender is not on women per se but on power relations
between women and men…”(446). Therefore, gender issues also concern men.
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In Africa, there has been much advocacy on the rights of women as a vulnerable group.
However, men’s concerns have been left on the periphery. Silberschmidt (2001) justifies this
assertion by affirming that: “While the impact of socioeconomic change on women’s lives in
East Africa has been widely documented, such documentation does not exist of men’s lives”
(657). Silberschmidt came up with this conclusion after she undertook a study that sought to
investigate the disempowerment of many men in rural and urban East Africa. Kabaji (2008)
concurs with Silberschmidt’s assertion when he posits that:
Gender relations are constructed in terms of the relations of power and
dominance that determine the opportunities and circumstances of both men and
women. Nevertheless, gender research in Africa has tended to focus only on
women. This skewed attention has given rise to the popular but fallacious
attitude that gender issues are synonymous with women issues. (34)
Lahoucine and Morell (2005) argue that African feminism and womanism, while departing from
Western feminism, have largely ignored African men and masculinity. Onyango (2007) argues
that: “for a long time gender studies have predominantly targeted women in Sub-Saharan Africa,
it is of course a truism that gender is both about femininities and masculinities” (1). He justifies
the need to include masculinities as part of gender studies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Silberschmidt
(2001) explains that patriarchal structures and stereotyped notions of gender hide the increasing
disempowerment of many men in rural and urban East Africa (657). She notes that
disempowerment is caused by high levels of unemployment and poverty, leading to the inability
of men to meet the cultural expectations of normative masculinity. There is also the question of
women’s empowerment which is a challenge to the traditional male hegemony. Her study calls
for more research in this region to correct the fallacy that all men in Africa enjoy patriarchal
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privilege. This image of masculinised African societies is evident in African literature.
Fornchingong (2006) study of gender narratives in African literature corroborates this assertion:
Male writers like Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Wole Soyinka, Ngugi Wa
Thiongo, and Cyprain Ekwensi in their literary mass are accused of condoning
patriarchy, are deeply entrenched in a macho conviviality and a one dimensional
and minimalised presentation of women who are demoted and assume peripheral
roles. Their penchant to portray an androcentric narrative is at variance with the
female gender that are (sic) trivialized through practices like patriarchy, tradition,
culture, gender socialization process, marriage and domestic enslavement. (135)
Female writers like Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Mariama Ba, Bessie Head and Ama Ata
Aidoo struggle to deconstruct this masculine order in their writings. Patriarchy is an ideology
that perpetuates hegemonic masculinity. Onyango (2008) defines hegemonic masculinity as “the
dominant form of masculinity that influences boy’s and men’s understanding of how they have
to act in order to be acceptably male and that this dominant male is associated with
heterosexuality, toughness, power, authority, competitiveness and subordination of gay men”
(247). It is the socially and culturally exalted form of being a “real man” (5). Kimmel et al
(2005) explain that the hegemonic image of masculinity is constructed often through articulation
of difference with the “others”. The “other” are the racial, sexual and gender minorities. Racial
minorities are like the blacks in a colonial context. Sexual minorities are the homosexuals, while
gender minorities are women. He explains that hegemonic masculinity is homophobic.
Therefore, homosexual men impose certain boundaries and use their power to maintain it. Thus
men and women who do not confirm to heterosexuality are vilified. Kimmel et al (2005) argue
that dominant races created an ideal hegemonic masculinity against a screen of “others”, whose
masculinity was devalued. Hence hegemonic and subaltern emerged in mutual but unequal
interaction in a gendered social and economic order (4). Ratele (2001) in discussing power
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