By Lilian Mutua
Kenyan politics is becoming dangerously sexualised, and women in leadership are increasingly being reduced to performance pieces in a political culture that rewards spectacle more than substance. Somewhere along the way, public leadership stopped looking like service and started looking like entertainment. At rallies across the country, female politicians are cheered not for policy positions or legislative ideas, but for dancing, catwalking, body-shaking and viral theatrics. Crowds roar louder for performance than for principle. Cameras zoom in. Clips trend online. And the political machine moves on as though nothing is wrong.
But something is wrong.
Because what Kenya is witnessing is the slow normalisation of a political culture that treats women in leadership as visual entertainment before intellectual participants.
There are videos of influential political figures like Farouk Kibet parading women before crowds while asking supporters, “anaweza ama hawezi?” as cheering audiences respond excitedly. The language is playful on the surface, but beneath it lies a deeper problem: women in politics are increasingly being validated through performance and crowd appeal rather than leadership.
The trend does not stop there.
In another viral political moment, Esther Passaris openly joked about her body during a public gathering, even spanking herself as crowds laughed and cheered along. The moment spread quickly online, consumed less as political engagement and more as entertainment content.
And now, recent controversy surrounding Senator Karen Nyamu and remarks directed toward a young girl visiting the Senate has reignited national discomfort over the tone, language and culture surrounding women in public office. But the problem did not begin with Karen Nyamu. She emerged from a system that has spent years rewarding sensationalism, sexual innuendo and performative femininity in politics.
A system where phrases like “serikali ni tamu ukiwa ndani” dominate political discourse. Where access to government is described using the language of seduction, pleasure and intimacy. Where political power itself is framed less as responsibility and more as desirability. And women are adapting to survive inside that system. Because visibility in Kenyan politics increasingly belongs to those who trend.
The woman who dances will often receive more attention than the woman who debates policy.
The woman who creates viral moments will be amplified faster than the woman who speaks about governance.
The woman who entertains the crowd risks becoming more politically relevant than the woman who challenges power intellectually. That is the tragedy.
Not because women are incapable of leadership, but because the political environment continuously pressures them to package themselves as spectacle in order to remain visible. Meanwhile, male politicians encourage it, laugh along with it, record it, circulate it online and then later pretend to be guardians of morality when public backlash begins. And the most dangerous part of all this is not the rallies. It is the audience.
Young girls are watching.
They are watching female politicians gain applause through theatrics before ideas. Watching leadership become performance. Watching public office slowly blur into entertainment culture.
What image of womanhood and power are they inheriting?
What does a young girl learn when visibility matters more than dignity?
When virality matters more than vision?
When a woman leader’s body generate more political engagement than her policies?
Kenya fought hard for women to enter rooms of power. But representation loses meaning if those same rooms reduce women into spectacles for public consumption because women in politics should not have to entertain in order to matter.
And a political culture that constantly sexualises women cannot genuinely claim to respect their leadership.
