Intersecting inequalities in women’s political inclusion in Kenya

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sub-Saharan Africa has become known for its growing number of women political decision makers, and its progressive policies and laws such as gender quotas. Yet we still do not know enough about how politically active women themselves perceive the challenges and opportunities of being women in politics, and how their experiences differ because of intersecting inequalities. Inspired by the intersectional approach and literature on women and politics in Africa, this article examines politically active women’s perceptions and experiences of electoral politics in Kenya. Through their own stories, it describes how diverse Kenyan women experience political inclusion and exclusion not only as women, but also simultaneously through the complex combinations of such intersecting identities and structural social positionalities as ethnicity and class. Taking party nominations, political campaigning, and electoral violence as examples, the article illustrates how intersecting patterns cross-cut electoral processes. By identifying barriers to their political inclusion, politically active women explain how things should not be, and in doing so, they participate in imagining and outlining new ways of conducting politics in Kenya.