Femicide – The killing of a woman or girl because of her sex, especially when motivated by misogyny, (Wiktionary) definition.

A few days ago a twenty-five-year-old Kenyan woman, Malkia, was found dead in her one-bedroom apartment where she was cohabitating with her boyfriend. It is suspected that he killed her and ran away. In most of these cases, it’s always said younger women get killed because they live a reckless life, yet a forty-three-year-old woman was stabbed together with her current boyfriend by her ex-lover.

He followed and broke into her home, stabbing her after she had left and secured herself a house. This has totaled 4 femicide cases in the past two weeks in Kenya. Femicide statistics reveal that most women are being killed by their partners who are supposed to be protecting them.

South Africa, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe also have a high rate of femicide cases in Africa. Has rape culture, misogyny, and thinking of women as disposable and murderous in their own right been normalized? In the same country Kenya, Governor Kenneth Lusaka is calling on pregnant teens to be banned from resuming their studies because according to him back then, it was rare to find a pregnant girl in classes so they should be banned so they become “careful and responsible.”

When “Alpha Males” go live on podcasts and encourage their male counterparts to go for younger women, they are applauded. These are the same men who go for young and naïve girls, impregnate them and toss them to the side, and later on, belittle single mothers. It’s amazing how women always have to take the blame but never the men who pursue them. When it comes to relationships it is often said that women mature faster than boys but never when it comes to the boardroom. Women are still ridiculed and sometimes passed on for promotions because they are not married.

Over a month ago popular Nigerian actor Emeka Ike called out his former wife whom he married and got pregnant before she was twenty whilst he was thirty-seven. He labeled her as toxic and ungrateful as she destroyed and took over his properties. Emeka Ike acknowledged that he put his ex-wife through university using his friends’ connections who were already lecturers and professors. What he forgot to mention was how he was very abusive in the relationship. Nigerian singer, Harryysong, who is popular for his song Konna is in the papers for similar allegations.

Harrysong, forty-one has a twenty-three-year-old wife whom he married at twenty and is now body-shaming her after she bore him two girls. The singer has admitted to cheating on his wife and has told her to abort her pregnancy since she is only giving birth to girls. He even dares to call her profanities and tell her there are better, educated, richer women out there and wonder how a twenty-three-year-old could have become all that yet bought her love at a young age.

In most African countries it is difficult for single women to get accommodation as they are often labelled as ‘prostitutes.’ When women come out and speak out they are labelled as bitter. We are still in a society that believes a man choosing you is all there is to life. We live in a society that has successfully convinced one gender that “one drunk man is better than three women with PHDs,” and goes on to support and validate this type of thinking.

Feminists are bashed on and offline and seen as vile humans, which goes to show how much ‘it is a man’s world.’ Feminists are considered to be jealous since they are either “UGLY” to attract a suitor or too old to attract a worthy man.