Behavioural scientists last week told DN2 that the manner in which the injuries inflicted on the men were discussed, especially on Kenya’s vibrant social media, reveals the society’s double standards on the gender-based violence discourse: when it happens to a woman it is criminal; but when it happens to a man it is comedy.
Counselling psychologist Catherine Gacutha had four important words for DN2 over the phone:
“This is not funny.”“And it should not be treated as such,” Prof Gacutha added.
While the Nyeri incidents trended on social networking sites for the better part of the week, few commented on their social implications. As a caption to a picture of a teary-eyed cat, for instance, one Twitter user joked: “When you remember you have to go back home to your #Nyeri wife” on June 10, 2014. A day later, another Tweep jested that “he is brave he who marries a woman from Nyeri... and sleeps with both eyes closed”.
Their ridiculing of the Nyeri woman was informed by a current notion, propagated mostly on social media, that women from this central Kenya region take no hostages and suffer not fools.
Men under SiegeHutia Mundu!!