Audio Snip

The audio gave the impression of a helpless lady who was being sexually molested by a man.

By Benjamin Mwithali

After listening carefully to the ‘Mollis’ audio clip that has been doing rounds on social media, I have been left at crossroads on who to exactly to blame.

The clip which is believed to have been recorded by a man (Maurice but whose name was pronounced by the lady as ‘Mollis’) as they were having sex (as was the impression), at one point painted a picture of a helpless lady who was pleading with the man to stop the act since she was ‘tired’.

But the man did not stop and she continued to plead making some analysts conclude by refusing to listen to the pleas by the woman, the man ended up raping her.

However while that may be as the analysts may conclude, I have a feeling that the lady ought to have done more than just pleading with the man to stop his ‘beastly’ act. Yes, the Mollis lady should have done more – either scream, bite the man, kick him – I mean anything to just show her attempt to speak against the alleged injustices that were being committed against her.

Let me put it this way. In our society discrimination against women has over the years been a great menace that has continued to persist even with modern day enlightenment. My take is that chauvinism is the main reason why this happening, and this partly because of the inability of women to challenge its order.

In Kenya a huge chunk of men tend to be prejudiced against women in a myriad of ways and this I believe has its foundation on the myth that even in the biblical times women were made to play subordinate roles and the males the grander roles. This is what therefore makes men to strive to remain at the top while at the same time ensuring that women remain at the periphery.

Unfortunately women just accept that bottom place they have been designated to by the society without questioning. Or the few who challenge the status quo are easily branded as being big headed hence ‘unmanageable’ and every step is made to make them not ‘influence’ the one who are not ‘corrupted’ yet. At the end of the it is the men’s side of the world that is left to see the sun.

Then there is the inability of women, or the lack of it, to form strong bonds among themselves to rise above the injustices. It has to do with the myth that women are enemies of themselves. In Kenya while they command the highest voter numbers they never campaign for one of their own to take up some of the highest positions on land. As we speak, Kenya’s history of the Presidency has not known a woman president. Not even one of the 47 County heads is a woman. Why?

Discrimination is not a concept that happens without our knowledge. In fact it is a disease of the mind that starts from deep within oneself, you cannot move forth if you believe that you can’t. Moving forth starts from an internal self-drive before being influenced by any other external factors.

I therefore think that even if ideally we cannot have absolutely equal opportunities between men and women we can be somewhere close if only women became more aggressive in demanding what is rightfully theirs. This cannot be achieved by just making noise and subsequently failing to take any action.

So if the lady could have gone a notch higher and perhaps tried demanding what was rightfully hers, that is her freedom, to make a decision by even hitting the guy with any object that she could find in the house, or perhaps scream out loud to convince us that she was really against what was happening we would be having a different version of ‘Mollis’. That of a heroine who stopped cruelty on herself by rising up and saying enough is enough.

It is on the same breath that I ask all women, whenever faced with a situation that demands they take action against injustices on them they should take action.

*Benjamin Mwithali is a student at Egerton University, Nakuru.