Gender and Culture: Some Reminiscences of Sulmena Adek Otula from Childhood in a Rural Set up to Residence in Post-colonial Nairobi, 1949-2006

Abstract

This study focuses on some reflections of Sulmena Adek Otula born in Ugenya location Siaya County in 1949. Using episodes from Adek's life history, the enquiry looks at her socialization process within the Luo culture in which she was born and bred. Concomitantly, it assesses ways in which Adek's life history is a demonstration of the female body as a man's colony, sometimes with the cooperation of other women. The study further examines how, as illustrated by Adek, women's movement to the more cosmopolitan towns such as Nairobi,  got them exposed to multiple oppressions of gender, race and class. Further still the study uses Adek's example to attempt to elucidate on women's struggle for independence and the some of the methods they employed to achieve that goal in the period stretching from the 1950s to 2006. The research is also an exposition of some of the challenges women face as they struggle for autonomy from the male and other dominations entrenched within their cultures. The study proposes that in cultures such as Adek's where male superiority was entrenched, men constantly invoke culture to resist women's nationalism, hence to maintain the status quo. In an attempt to locate Adek's situation in the wider context of gender and development, the study analyses the interaction between her and culture by employing a number of discourses on gender, nationalism and the body. Such debates include patriarchal domination, intersectionality of oppressions and agency and resistance.