HOW FEMINISM IS ADDRESSED IN THE RIVER AND THE SOURCE

The story revolves around Akoko. The buck stops with women in the fight against oppressive testosterone. It is upon women to tap into their innermost strength to transform the world it what they imagined. Akoko, being on the losing end in a male-dominated family fought her way to earn her father’s love. She had to put her feet on the ground to make the world recognize her. Aloo, the family spokesman said that Akoko’s hard work had been incorporated into a saying that women sending their children on errands would mention her.

She did not show any female shyness when she was introduced to her husband to be. With her head held high, Akoko stirred into Owuor Kembo a feeling that had not earned vocabulary among the Luo - love.

Akoko did not subject the chief to monogamy. She was okay with him marrying as many women as her wealth could manage. It was the chief’s decision, despite growing outcry, to remain faithful to his wife. We are not told of any arm-twisting but sure as the sun rises in the east, Akoko builds chief Owuor Kembo to stand in her defense and love her unconditionally.

I don’t want to explain how she did it, and I don’t want to sound melodramatic about it. One thing that is for certain is, women have the power to change oppressive traditions to accommodate them.

Otieno Kembo treated his wives like sluts. He thought he would do the same to Akoko, short as she was; she had the height in confidence. She stood him down on various occasions. She earned his fear and she cherished it. The difference between Akoko and Otieno’s wives is, she was daring where the wives were submissive, she was confident where they were shy and she was loving where they were just doing their duty to their husband.

Many women in oppressive regimes choose to be dutiful. To ask little, oppose little and take in as much as they can. (Read Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Sun’s). In most occasions, women wait until it is too late to do too little.

Akoko stood before the DO and DC to fight for her infant grandson birthright in Kisumu in defiance to Otieno Kembo. She did not have to use men to right a wrong; she did what any mother would do in the face of an uncollapsible wall. She forwarded the case before the white man herself, defiant like Mekatilili before the British who were conscripting young Giriama men into a war they knew little about. She knew her days in Sakwa were over, she, therefore, packed, having won the war, and went away.

Let me shift gears and burrow into other characters who bore a mark on feminism in the book. First on the list is Vera. Vera as a young lady broached a question which by standards of the time would have brought the earth to a standstill. Even in some societies today, such acts are despicable. She asked her father for permission to go out on a date with Tony Muhambe. This was an atrocity that could lodge a fishbone in any father. Her mother of course intervened in the matter but this act alone marked Vera as a woman daring to stand against forces that had defined her community.

She turned down Tony’s proposal for marriage! Who does that? She, therefore, decided to live unmarried life! This alone would have earned her father shame that would have landed him hanging on a tree in a banana plantation shame written over his face. A girl’s destiny was determined by her father. Vera did the despicable and her dad was okay with it.

Wandia Mugo the wife of Aoro Sigu is a significant woman too. She did ask Aoro to marry her! Further on in the book, she becomes the first Kenyan woman to earn a doctorate in Medicine. Men should swallow a hard pill on this! A woman! A doctor! A doctor Woman!

Basically, the trendsetters in the book are women who stand out to live a life they dreamed about to stand down regimes that are oppressive and to disapprove those who thought that they cannot. Women have been joyriding on the affirmative action but its time they should ditch the tomfoolery and proactively stand out equal to the task and look down upon regimes that reward them with sugarcoated buffoonery of half-baked men opportunity called affirmative action.