Why Gender and Age should not be an Agenda for Elective Position

I told people in 2013 and then in 2017 that it is cheap to seek votes on account of being a woman or a young person. I categorically said that I do not vote for someone for the simple reason that they fall under those two categories. I vote for someone because they come across as candidates who have some agenda; stand for something; seem (yes often is just about perception) to have some vision of whatever it is that they want to do if and when elected. Now. This was a time when people peddled half-truths like ‘oh you know women have that motherly love and care so if we vote more women leadership would be approached from such a motherly love and care’ or that ‘oh you see the youth are a majority and that youth also can lead and that actually the youth deserve a chance’ blah blah blah. These are hollow statements. They are just nice things to hear but beyond those romantics, they are not in themselves carriers of any significant facts. Here is the thing both women and youth are marginalized and excluded not only from leadership but from every other aspect of the bloody patriarchal society that we live in. That is regrettable, it should never have happened and it MUST be corrected. There cannot be two ways about this. My argument has always been that equality is not an option neither is it something to be begged for. No woman in this bloody world or young person should beg for their right to be equal members of society. The people who have suffered all these kind of injustices especially women MUST rise up and any conscientious creature must join the cause for the right of all to be equal in every other aspect humanly possible. That said. You do not offer your candidature for elective position and sell your gender or your age. No. Sell an agenda. Create or buy one. Get an idea; craft a vision and build your campaign around it. Go out and give us an alternative; show us cause why you are a better option and stop telling us to vote for you simply because you are a woman or you are young. Please I beg you, don’t. We won’t elect you. At least, I won’t. Once I see you as a person who comes across as embodying certain aspirations that can better society, I will cast my ballot for you without ever thinking about how woman or man and young or old you are. That is because your gender or age matter less. That is liberation. That said. Those people, in my country, who in the last election told us that ‘it was time for the youth’ and/or that ‘women were motherly and caring’ should show us how characters like Babu Owino, or Jaguar, or Cheruiyot or Sang etc are better than the old wazees (old men) who have been mismanaging and stealing from us all these years. And then if William Ruto is perceived as thief number one, we then also know that one Anne Waiguru is perceived as thief number two. And then from the recent Auditor General’s report, the County Government of Bomet is ‘up top’ (using the language of one boxing fan during last weekend's fight in which Fatuna Zarika was apparently rigged in you know!) in the list of Counties with the most wastage of public resources. The Governor of Bomet is one Joyce Laboso. What happened to the motherly love and care in Madam Joyce? That is what it is. Women are as capable and men are as capable; older people are as capable just as younger people are as capable. Leadership knows no gender and age. The flip side is that; neither does theft nor mismanagement know gender or age. I wish to see a world (in my life time hopefully) where we are no longer talking about things like gender and age as factors determining who we entrust with leadership and stuff like that (in the words of Thabo Mbeki you know).