Feminism isn't About Women's Superiority...

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There is a clear difference between the feminism of the 19th century and the feminism that is springing up around the modern world, and that which is rampant in many developed countries such as Canada and the USA. The militant version of feminism, best known as femini-nazism seeks to set women above men, where as feminism isn't about setting women above men, but rather making political and civil rights as well as equality available for both men in all aspects of life.

While men and women are different, their rights, under the feminist mandate accepts that while seeking to make a culture of acceptance, tolerance and equality. This seems elusive to many women (and some men, as both can be equally oppressed) in the rest of the world.

This concept has been embraced by the Umoja womenfolk of Kenya, who fled their male-opressors, after being shunned within the cold embrace of their own cultural ghetto. Upon fleeing they set up something of a makeshift shelter in the form of a village, making something of a gynocracy.

No men allowed in village of women.

While it is a haven for both girls and women of vicious circumstances, it is a matriarchy, with a female at the head of the village, and with no men around (except in a local village, which had been acting as a rival tribe, though of the same heritage - bloody male-egotism), they have allowed for females to come in and feel safe.

Rebecca Lolosoli, the matriarch at the head of this village was one of the origibal women banished from her home village on ludicrous allegations by the overbearing patriarch that presided with a head fist over the village and over the women.

What started as a group of homeless women looking for a place of their own has become a successful and happy village in northern Kenya. About three dozen women live here and run a cultural centre and camping site for tourists visiting the adjacent Samburu National Reserve.
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With the money they collected from their ventures, the women were able to eat well, send their children to school for the first time and reject male demands for their daughters' circumcision and marriage. They even hired men to haul firewood, traditionally women's work.

They became so respected that troubled women — some beaten, some trying to get divorced — started showing up in Umoja. Then, Lolosoli was invited by the United Nations to attend a recent world conference on gender empowerment in New York.

The strength displayed by the ousted women enabled them to do more than they thought. Their popularity has allowed them to throw off the shackles of negative traditional values; such as forced marriage and female circumcision, which unlike the male, is generally unsafe and better known as female genital mutilation due to the lack of proper surgical procedure and safety.

They have begun a process of empowering the younger generation through education. Knowledge is power and with this power, the women have been able to steer their daughtes' future in a better direction, much to the dissatisfaction and irritation of the neighbouring all-male village (or patriarchy).

The men of the nearby village of course aren't happy. These are their women! And these women have rised up against them - sacrilege! Of course, the men didn't have the same ability to rise up from the ashes of death like the phoenix, so, there was a certain amount of jealous to be expected.

The men in the rival village also attempted to build a tourist and cultural centre, but were not very successful.

The men have been growingly unable to control what they've always believe what theirs. But, that's what happens when you push away something that you hold close to you; it changes and not in ways one would expect.

A package of new laws has been presented to Kenya's parliament to give women unprecedented rights to refuse marriage proposals, fight sexual harassment in the workplace, reject genital mutilation and prosecute rape, an act so frequent that Kenyan leaders call it the nation's biggest human rights issue.

The most severe penalty would chemically castrate repeatedly convicted rapists and send them to prison for life.

Of course, the government is always around to assist with the "betrayal" process. The Kenyan government has turned its back on the men and decided to take a radical step forward and provide women with the same basic rights many of their western counterparts take for granted and their local counterparts dream for but know it is just a fleeting dream, or is it?

It's just a window dressing on progression to appease the UN, or maybe not. It seems like it's the real deal. However, I won't put my money on it until I see it in practice. However, women who step outside of the long-arm of the law to make a safe-haven are making an impact on the rest of the society, by not breaking the law but showing that there is no turning back after a certain point, and that point was inthe 19th century with such trend-setting women as Nellie McClung, Suzanne B Anthony and many others.

There is hope...

Eleven years after the genocide in Rwanda, in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, women in the country hold 49 per cent of the seats in the lower house of parliament. Many of them are war widows who have said they felt compelled to rise up in protest after male Hutu leaders presided over the 1994 slaughter of Tutsi tribal members and moderate Hutus.

...even if it takes genocide to bring about regime change. Rwanda has shown it is taking a step in the right away, even if there are numerous human rights violations. But, with women holding half of the seats in a lower house, change is inevitable and it'll be for the better. Both agendas are going to be equally represented.