The Other Side of Kenya

Hey y’all I’m back again. Like most of you, I thought that my last blog post would be the final chapter of my Borlaug-Ruan chronicles, but I kept feeling that my blog series was incomplete. So, today I’m going to talk about something that affected me during my whole trip: sexism.

I’ve long contemplated if I wanted to make a blog post about this subject, but I felt that I wasn’t being completely honest by just showing you all the sunshine and rainbows side of my trip. I was going to make a blog post about this subject earlier on in my trip at the peak of my experiences with sexism, but I thought it might be wise to reflect on these incidents before I shared my raw emotions about the topic. So, without further ado, here are my experiences with sexism during my Borlaug-Ruan trip.

Before I start, I just want to make clear that this is how I saw and interpreted my experiences. I am by no means speaking for all Kenyan and Tanzanian women. Sexism is an issue that plagues every single country and is not just a problem of the developing world. I also what to emphasize that Colton was in no way responsible for my negative experiences with sexism. He was a great travel buddy! :)

On our first day in Kenya, Colton asked me, “Is it any different travelling as a woman?” I replied, “Um… maybe? I have not experienced anything different so far, but I’m sure I’ll find some differences eventually.” It only took until the next day to see this difference. We went on a tour and the whole time something felt off. Even though it was only Colton and I on the tour, I felt like I wasn’t really a part of it. The whole time, our guide exclusively talked to Colton as if I wasn’t there. I wasn’t initially too bothered by this encounter. I thought, “This is just one person, it will get better”, but this is not what happened. Every day after that, I had a run-in with sexism. Every day I would hear, “Colton, what do you think about this?” “Colton, how is this in America?” It was constantly Colton this, Colton that. It was hardly ever, “Christina, what are your thoughts?” When we would be introduced to new people, it would never be, “Colton and Christina meet so and so.” Introductions usually would only involve introducing Colton, and I would have to try to insert myself into the conversation. Unfortunately though, very often, the other person would already be too preoccupied talking to Colton to really acknowledge me. This caused me to not have the same access to networking opportunities or to even just learn from locals.

In addition to the aforementioned incidences, what really got to me the most was when I was made out to be lesser than Colton even when I had equal credentials, and in some cases even more credentials or knowledge than him. For example, after a focus group discussion that we held in a village, the hosting farmers and our mentors were telling the participants more about us. They introduced Colton first, highlighting that he was about to go to his first year of university to study biology and comes from a farming family in Iowa etc. When it came time to introduce me, it went a little like this, “This is Christina from Virginia. She is 19 and single.” They did not at all highlight the fact that I am going into my second year of university pursuing a double major or anything else meaningful about me. I was just see as an eligible, young bachelorette.

These are a few of the encounters I had with sexism, and while they were all very passive, they hurt none the less. They were examples of microaggressions, “commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative insults toward any marginalized group”. The hard thing with microaggressions is, as their definition suggests, that they are commonplace and not what we normally think of as blatant discrimination. While seemingly minor, microaggressions hurt nonetheless, and sometimes they hurt even more than blatant discrimination because they are more often experienced. I like to think of microaggressions like snags in a shirt. The first time your shirt snags on something, it is a little damaged, but you still wear it and can accept a little imperfection. The problem is when you snag your shirt 100 times, it starts to look extremely damaged and is hard to put up with. Having to deal with sexism daily was very wearing and emotionally damaging, but the main problem that I saw with my constant subjection to it, was that it became normal. There was a point about halfway through my trip that I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to change, and I was just going to have to cope with it even though it still put me at a disadvantage. This is what I think many women have to do just to make it through each day. I know this phenomenon to be true, because I have seen myself normalize things when it comes to race because this type of discrimination has been most present in my life living in America.

It is dangerous to normalize discrimination because it stagnates change. I regret not speaking up more about how I felt in certain situations, but I am given hope by the resilient women in Kenya and Tanzania that already are making strides to equality and independence. I learned from one farmer at a field day that, for many women, farming serves as a source of independence. They can oversee the process from start to finish, and often have some control or even total control over that portion of the family income. This economically empowers them so that they can have more upward mobility to gain status which will lead to equality with males. It is crucial to invest in research and programming to support women farmers because it will not only improve food security but also empower women and promote gender equity.

While it was difficult to be subjected to sexism, I am happy that I now am more aware of how other women feel and how they must adapt to move through everyday life. It is not that I haven’t experienced sexism in America, it just has manifested itself differently. This is why strategies to tackle it must be tailored to each community. Knocking out discrimination will require a mindset change which will likely be gradual, but we can contribute to this change in the meantime by investing in women farmers. I read in a previous intern’s paper that Matilda, our mentor in Kenya, said to her that women have to continue to work hard in farming, often even harder than men, to demonstrate that they are more than capable of doing what men can do. It is unfortunate that they must make this effort, but inspiring change is not an easy job.

Thank you all for letting me get this off my chest. I hope now that you have a more complete picture of my international experience. While encountering sexism was negative, I am now more committed to empowering women in agriculture than ever before. Thanks again for following my journey. I hope that reading about my experiences or another intern’s adventures sparked an interest to travel abroad or to get involved in agriculture.

To close out, I want to leave you with a few pictures of beautiful, resilient Kenyan and Tanzanian queens that I had the privilege of meeting during my trip.

Thanks to Colton for taking many of these amazing pictures and thanks again for reading! Until next time :)