Pre-Colonial Kamba People and Women’s Political Mobilization

Abstract

Participation of women in politics is of paramount importance. This is because its within the politics that resource allocation and conflicts resolution takes place. People join politics to pursue self-interests and if women as a category are left out, it would mean that key policies and decisions made will ignore their aspiration. Women constitute more than half of the Kenyan population and form a sizeable part of the electorate, yet they still face political discrimination. Women are invisible as candidates for political office. The study was guided by Socail Relations Gender Approach. The basic tenets of this theory are, that human well–being is the primary goal of development, that social relations determines people’s roles, rights as well as their power over others and that institutions plays an integral role in perpetuating social inequality. The researcher employed exploratory research design. The findings of the study are that the Pre-colonial Kamba women exercised some degree of political power. There was a women council locally known as Iveti sya Ithembo which was equivalent to the community’s senior most council of the elder of the shrine (Atumia ma Ithembo).