When our Dubois Road version of TMZ aka the Tea-Master shared the Ole-Sereni incident pitting techie twins Eddy and Paul Ndichu against Murgor sisters, Stephanie and Cheryl - what followed was an online skirmish.
Netizens went into fits of pique. The diatribe laden tweets, Facebook commentaries and punditry from online ‘Gender issues cognoscenti’ was understandable. After all, was there not a CCTV footage that documented the brawl? Masculinity maniacs and Amerix junkies were exasperated that such successful and young men betrayed menfolk by ‘simping.’
Ostensibly, after imbibing, the blokes began to feel like Idris Elba and Michael Ealy all rolled into one, expecting any girl to genuflect at their throne and wipe their feet with hair dipped in myrrh. And when Stephanie and Cheryl failed to honour the sons of Zeus, the twins allegedly resorted to fists. That one of them is known to have been married to a celebrated former TV girl was like gasoline on the embers of aspersions and online hysteria meted their way.
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The saga was exacerbated when the sisters, flanked by their uncle, who happens to be renowned legal aficionado Phillip Murgor, issued an emotional press briefing, complete with a veneer of victimhood, underscoring what modern women have chosen to weaponize – the men-bashing culture that is quick, almost eager to throw any man into the guillotine as long as a woman as much as hates his scent. The backlash was not just against the Ndichu brothers; it quickly became men as aggressors versus women as victims discourse. An entire gender was raked over coals because of the purported behaviours of two dudes.
Before the cock crowed, the online screams which were mostly hinged on sentimentalism, innuendoes, conjectures, misandry, misogyny and feminism quickly oiled the wheels of cancel culture and within a jiffy, firms, investors and corporates that were associating or in business with the Ndichu brothers began pulling a St. Peter on the twins, issuing public declarations of ‘we have no ties with these fellas, they better sort their sh*t.’
After statements and counter-statements, legal wherewithal punches between Murgor and Edwin Sifuna (acting for the Ndichus), media interviews, angry growls from FIDA who only acts as American Pit Bulls where influential and moneyed culprits are involved but are toothless Chihuahuas on cases touching common wanjikus; social media glib from female celebrities- it has since emerged that the poor Murgor sisters are not blameless after all!
In a befuddling twist, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP) directed that the sisters be charged too for assault and malicious damage of property. Wait, did I just hear a pin drop? The silence is so loud and conspicuous; I could go deaf right now.
Welcome to the pungent stench of double standards that is threatening to choke the co-existence and mutual human congeniality that civilized men and women ought to share. Where is the uproar, the online brouhaha, KOT abracadabra, celebrity razzmatazz and pundits furore against the sisters who are now being accused of the same ‘crimes’ that saw us lynch the Ndichu twins in the court of public jury even without allowing a conclusive investigation and consequent administration of the law?
Oh, I forgot. We live in a society where men are guilty until proven innocent while women are innocent until proven otherwise. Where when it comes to men, we believe rumours, personal biases, emotions, making them feel like their sheer existence is something they should apologize for. That women empowerment has led to an avalanche of feminist rhetoric, and social media is hitherto awash with sweeping condemnations towards the male gender, yet, similar indictments of women are considered grossly misogynistic.
This double standards fuels gender antagonism and male aggression; that is why Amerix has a legion of male followers who often use his tweets to release their angst and frustrations. Our inherent fixation that only men are capable of behaving badly when in reality, men are not congenial villains but equal victims of societal pressures, burdened by the ‘masculinity’ expectations from those- read-women who depend on them for both livelihood and identity.
At the risk of hearing the same old tired clichés of ‘she is mansplaining’ and ‘pick me', the warped narration of male power and privilege must be debunked. Perhaps in days of yore, but in today’s world, when men can lose their jobs because of sexist missteps and be expelled from college over allegations of sexual misconduct male privilege is a blinkered view.
In the case of Ndichus vs Murgor sisters, let proper investigations be carried out and all parties found culpable be punished, regardless of their gender. And perhaps if we exhibited the same outrage when women are culprits, maybe we would create an aura of ‘equality’ that we are often too quick to blab about- and consequently deter women from weaponizing empowerment and victimhood that is quickly threatening the societal equilibrium essential for human socialization between both sexes.
