Reading Dina Ligaga’s Women, Visibility and Morality in Kenyan Popular Media from Tanzania

Abstract

Women, Visibility and Morality in Kenyan Popular Media examines constructions of femininity in Kenyan popular media and how these constructions engage with morality, sexuality and gender. The book focuses on narratives from three media: radio plays, tabloid newspapers, and social media. By using a Black feminist approach and cultural studies engagement with popular culture (13), Dina Ligaga critiques public constructions of femininity in Kenyan mediascapes (2). She argues that these constructions not only circulate stereotypical representations of femininity in Kenyan public culture, but also punitive measures taken against women for their transgression of behaviour, thus increasing violence against them. The book explores representations of a range of women (urban, politicians, educated, rich and low-income, married and unmarried) in Kenyan media, and their struggle for their wellbeing. Gender, feminist andmedia studies is a significant and burgeoning field of scholarship in Africa. For instance, some examples in Tanzania include Tanzanian women’s life histories (Ngaiza and Koda 1991), women/gender in education (Meena 1996; IDS 2011), gender inequalities (Mukangara and Koda 1997; TGNP Mtandao 2013), transformative feminism (Kitunga and Mbilinyi 2009), women in agriculture (Mbilinyi 2016), women in politics and management (Killian and Pastory 2018) and women and micro-credit (Mwaipopo and Dauda 2019). Studies on the representation of women in media and literary works in Tanzania include work by Swilla (2000), Omari (2008, 2019), Ekstrom (2010) and Lyimo (2014). Ligaga’s book has both divergences and parallels to those studies in Tanzania, as most of them have intended to analyse woman’s representation, marginalised position, and struggles in various sectors/media in order to address the situation. As a feminist researcher and a media scholar from East Africa, Ligaga has provided an interesting discussion on the topic. Unlike some previous studies on Kiswahili media, Ligaga’s book is wide-ranging in terms of the media outlets (newspapers, radio, and online social media such as Instagram) and groups of women examined. Basing her data on textual analysis of both (narratives and public scripts), Ligaga explores gender and sexuality as their representations circulate in Kenyan popular media. By writing this book, Ligaga wants us to understand the significance of and the role played by various agencies in representing and shaping women, including the state, publics, media practitioners and women themselves. Ligaga gives us a broad picture of the representation