Social Construction of Womanhood among the Pokot Community, Kenya

Abstract

This paper uses data collected within the framework of the Ph.D. thesis, Effects of Obstetric-Fistula on Womanhood: The Case of West-Pokot County, Kenya, of Musyoki, K.G., published in 2016 at Kenyatta University. The qualitative paper explores how women in West-Pokot County, Kenya, participate in constructing their womanhood identity. The study adopted a phenomenological design method informed by the performative theory by Butler (1988), which posits that gender is made up of acts that mark a person as ‘man' or ‘woman'. The ‘making' of a woman in the African context, and among the Pokot, entailed a series of events that together codified the expectations for successful social maturation. The initiates, basically pubescent girls, were schooled through ‘learning-to-become' on their new status and its responsibilities with pain endurance as the main test to ‘growing-up' socially. They, acquired knowledge to perform as mature women, wives, mothers, and citizens in their community, in public and in private although physiologically immature. Therefore, this study seeks to provide new trends in thinking about womanhood among the Pokot and Kenyan women that does not only revolve around wifehood and motherhood in the social construction of womanhood. It is essential to suggest other rallying points that could emphasize development of new identities that can empower young girls and women in West-Pokot County, Kenya, to aspire more in life.