Kenyan women's group tells men: Make war? No love

[JonLP24]

Source: SFGate

Thousands of Kenyan women vowed Wednesday to begin a weeklong sex strike to try to protest their country's bickering leadership, which they say threatens to revive the bloody chaos that convulsed the African country last year.

Leaders from Kenya's largest and oldest group dedicated to women's rights, the Women's Development Organization, said they hope the boycott will persuade men to pressure the government to make peace.

Eleven women's groups are participating in the strike. The groups have also called on the wives of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to abstain. It was not clear how either wife responded to the request.

"We have looked at all issues which can bring people to talk and we have seen that sex is the answer," said Rukia Subow, chairman of the Women's Development Organization. "It does not know tribe, it does not have a (political) party and it happens in the lowest households."



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/29/international/i084758D26.DTL

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Sounds like a Greek play

I don't recall the name, though. Lysistrada?

[htuttle]

2. Lysistrata

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. Thanks! The Wikipedia gives an outline of the plot

Lysistrata

I think it would be worth finding an annotated translation, it sounds entertaining. :toast:

[sofa king]

24. Also Ecclesiazusae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblywomen
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/eccles.html

Although that one is probably more suited to the freepers, as it pretty much paints women as overly-democratic socialists. But it is also a tacit nod to the potential power of women (and perhaps the fear of that power it when women are repressed). The use of sex as a political instrument is again humorously explored.

[villager]

3. Lysistrata lives!

I always thought this was a vastly overdue tactic...!

[JerseygirlCT]

17. LOL - I swear I hadn't looked at the responses when I made mine,

below.

Great minds, I guess!

:toast:

[dalaigh lllama]

4. Someone's been reading "Lysistrata"

You go, girls.

[ananda]

6. What! Did they all read Lysistrata?

Shades of Aristophanes...

Good for them!

[timtom]

7. Not fair.

Almost everyone here got here first and used the same material I was gonna use. I was going to say "Shades of Aristophanes!" Then I was going to mention "Lysistrata" but now it's not necessary.

I'm not necessary.

So it goes...

[villager]

11. Wait a minute -- yours was the first mention of "Aristophanes" in this thread!

Extra points for naming the author, yes?

[timtom]

13. No, ananda (post #6) invoked that name just before I did.

[villager]

15. Ah. Yes she did. Serves me right for not reading post #6.

On the other hand, maybe you can get an honorable mention by dropping Euripides'name?

[timtom]

19. But YOU just mentioned Euripides' name...

Which reminds me of the old joke -- a scene in a Greek tailor shop.

Customer hands tailor a pair of trousers.
Tailor: Euripides?
Customer: Yes. Eumenides?

Uh! Oh! Here comes my bus. Gotta run now. Ta Ta.

[villager]

23. You see? You have earned all your missed points back...

...with that joke...!

[Thothmes]

25. First heard that joke

told to us by our foreign language teacher in 1962. Its been around for a lot longer than that I suspect.

[No Elephants]

27. How would Euripides be relevant to a thread about women withholding sex from warriors, though?

[OneBlueSky]

8. so how would this work in a country or state where gay marriage is legal? . . .

just wonderin' . . . :shrug:

[winyanstaz]

9. Well nothing else has worked,,maybe this would..

You don't see large armies of women marching off to rape and pillage and murder people because someone tells them too.
Maybe its time for women to rule the world..the guys have made a big mess so far. :)

[No Elephants]

28. Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi and Margaret Thatcher were not males. Just sayin'.

[jkappy]

10. reinforces woman=sex (reminds one of terrible '60s slogan that

"women say yes to men who say no" (anti-war)

[Book Lover]

12. Bingo (nm)

[Dr Fate]

18. Sex sells.

Men think of sex a lot-usually at the same time they are thinking about women.

For better or for worse-I don't see that changing.

I hope their sex strike works. Hit 'em where it hurts, in other words.

[MasonJar]

14. All women need to take this path. The Greeks knew what they were talking about.

[No Elephants]

26. I take it you are male.

[JerseygirlCT]

16. Lysistrata lives! nt

[Sultana]

20. Great idea but I don't think it will work

[snowdays]

21. party pooper

sarcasm

[NickB79]

22. If a man is so violent that he'll beat someone bloody, why would he respect a woman's demands?

I'm playing Devil's Advocate here: A man comes home after looting and street fights, yet accepts his wife's refusal to have sex, instead of resorting to more violence?

[Robbien]

29. Kenyan women call for sex boycott

Source: Financial Times

Kenyan women's organisations have called for a national sex boycott to force feuding male politicians in the coalition government to resolve differences.

The women said they were prepared to pay prostitutes to withhold their services for a week to make the campaign more effective. . . The women have sent emissaries to the wives of both men to encourage them to join the boycott

. . .

Kenya was gripped by violent ethnic protests that almost pitched the country into civil war and resulted in the deaths of some 1,500 people in the aftermath of disputed elections. The coalition government formed to end the crisis has been beset by corruption scandals and internal feuding even as 10m Kenyans are threatened by starvation.


"This is a call to mass action to protest poor leadership," said Ms Patricia Nyaundi, executive director of the women's organisation, FIDA. "The other option was to take to the streets with placards but we would have been clobbered by the police. So this is a protest from the safety of our homes."

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/94e5a466-35e7-11de-a997-00144feabdc0.html

---

Sounds like a protest which could get results.

[Doctor Cynic]

30. So what happens when the women are getting tired of boycotting?

[Fumesucker]

31. It's been thought of before...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata

[comtec]

32. considering how often women are raped in africa

i doubt this will do any good.
a sex boycott only works when men, in general, won't take the alternative route - which from reports, is disturbingly common.

i hope it does good tho.
good on em for trying, one way or another!