In 2016, I founded the Mekatilili Program, which is an educational initiative that conducts interactive workshops on Human-Centered Design and basic engineering concepts to improve technical expertise, nurture innovation and to promote social cohesion among the youth in Africa. The focus of the program is to improve representation of women in STEM by facilitating these workshops in girls’ high schools. I hope to expose as many young, African women to design and innovation, to inspire girls to pursue careers in STEM and to be changemakers in their communities.

The group of people who would be best positioned to address this problem are:

1. Women in STEM – Through their experiences, they can positively inform what would be the most appropriate solution. They also know what may work, what needs to be improved and can identify key issues in girls’ education.
2. Educators – Their role in education can greatly inspire or deter young women to join STEM. Fostering creative learning in schools can promote an enabling environment that encourages girls to get involved in STEM.
3. Policymakers – They are able to lower and remove barriers which hinder creative learning through systematic changes in education. Also, they can create awareness on gender bias and disparity in schools and in the workplace to shed light on various challenges that women face.

Reflecting on the consequences of the proposed solutions, I wonder if solely focusing on girls’ in STEM may inadvertently create a reverse effect whereby young boys and men feel neglected.

In the 2017 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) test scores, which is national examination completed by students in their final year of primary school, an unprecedented number of girls topped the country. Cyprian Nyakundi, a popular Twitter personality (who had over 700,000 followers before his account was suspended) wrote a lengthy post responding to the news and criticizing the feminist movement. Some quotes from the post include:

Men can no longer remain silent as the continued “genocide” on our gender persists. We are seeing more resources and emphasis being laid on the Girl-Child, contrary to the spirit of equality as conceptualized by the original feminist movement.

While rabid-feminists are chest-thumping and calling it a “victory”, right-thinking women who are mothers to sons, sisters, aunties, grandmothers can see the crisis that we are staring at. They know that their Boy-Child’s will not realize their full potential in this toxic environment, skewed to favor women.

The post went viral and to my surprise, many men supported his views as seen through the comments.

We’re busy empowering the girl child and ignorantly marginalizing the boychild.. The boy child will soon be extinct if we’re not careful. Let voices and activism arise in the same measure. Feminism is deafening us. Why should we be silent!!?

…continue laughing as men and boy child are being pushed to the corner by chauvinists, gays and lesbians. Violence and terror should be meted on those against boy child with immediate effect.

While others demanded for a call to action.

This result is just worrying, boys used to top, what happened, we need a discussion on this and a serious one to see how the boy child can gain his glory. We are throwing our boys to the bottom line and we expect them to be bread winners, let’s do something.

By focusing on women, am I inadvertently creating a rift between boys and girls in Kenya? Don’t young, African boys deserve to be involved in STEM programs too?

My personal experiences have shown me that there is a definite need to empower young women and to provide role models to inspire them to achieve their goals. But now I wonder if I am widening the gender gap that I seek to bridge.