Worries of the Heart
How does the concept of gender change the way we think about colonialism in Kenya and Africa? Give specific examples.
Is colonialism 'bad' or 'good?' Conventional wisdom in the 19th century suggested that colonialism was beneficial to the residents of Africa and East Asia, because it was 'civilizing' and was even necessary, to 'carry the white man's burden' of enlightening non-Christians. Then, in the wake of the decolonization process of the 20th century, colonialism was portrayed as an unmitigated evil by nationalists. In her book Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya, the African-born writer Kenda Mutongi attempts to question such dichotomies. Mutongi notes that when she was growing up, many of the women she met expressed a kind of nostalgia for the colonial era. The authors' mother, for example, remembers the carefully managed, sanitized hospitals of the British, which she said fell into disrepair after the Kenyan native population took control of the government (Mutongi 2). These attitudes were starkly contrasted with the radical politics which the author had learned at the hands of her teachers as part of...
Mutongi argues that the end of colonialism bought mixed benefits to women: on one hand, it provided them a discourse of liberation, but on the other hand, it eliminated many of the protections the British offered them [THESIS].
Attitudes towards the British were not as uncomplicated as we have been lead to believe, and gender exerts a powerful impact upon peoples' perceptions. The treatment of widows in native culture is particularly troubling, according to the author, and is thus the primary although not exclusive subject of her anthropological study. The new inheritance laws enacted after the colonial era were haphazardly designed and often negatively affected widows. During World War II, women's civil rights and mobility were strictly controlled, for fear that they would 'stray' while their husbands were away fighting. Widows were considered utterly bereft in this patriarchal culture and were unable to make a living themselves -- only by shaming men in the community to take care of them as their male duty were they able to survive (Mutongi 8). Mutongi calls this shaming 'worries of the heart,' in reference to the plague of…
