Female Husbands and the Tragedy of Men: Kamweretho, Women Empowerment and the Gendered Solidary among the Kikuyu of Kenya

Women in Central Kenya are evolving and revisiting an old tradition to break barriers of modern patriarchy. Invoking the concept of kamweretho these women are constantly and radically disrupting male domination in their everyday life. The "implosion" of all these things makes these women's stories unique and all the more compelling to feminists who are constantly searching for unique practices of feminism that resemble, but are not engineered by, western feminism. Kamweretho is a movement-an emergent, non-formal highly political women's group found among the Kikuyu of central Kenya. This female based movement aims at giving excessive traverse of power to women to perform traditional male duties in rural area. Since the activation of the group, many women have used Kamweretho as a political platform to join competitive politics in Kenya. From a broad perspective, the study seeks to examine the thesis that women based social movements are an avenue for improving the welfare of group members and their families. Using Goran Hydén concept of economy of affection, I illustrate that Kamweretho groups' operations and activities have a strong feminist agenda and often do not fit the conventional mechanisms associated with women groups. The movement gives women more opportunities and tools to challenge the status quo and dominant ways the Kikuyu society operates since they seem to question the authority of the traditional definition of a woman's role and position in the Kenyan society.