I have watched silently as this controversial decision was analysed, based either on a pro, anti-government dichotomy or louder still seen as part of an insidious plot hatched to gather the Agikuyu community and cronies of the President to all the powerful positions of government.

I have a wholly different take on the matter, one I feel particularly compelled to speak out on as a woman. Now, it is expected more and more every day that the educated African woman be an iconoclast, loudly crashing through the barriers that her paternalistic society places in her way, and causing trouble even where there should not be any. Such a woman is seen as an agitator against a peaceful and coherent society and an importer of dangerous foreign values.

So successful has been the counter-feminism movement that many women, myself included have come to take feminism' as a sort of taboo, and to have very negative views of any avowed feminists.  The passing over of Ms. Mwatela was however, even to the most timid of us women, even to the most ardent supporters of the government ,like I think I am ,a slap in the face.

To contextualise, here is a link to a table with country rankings for women in parliamentary positions. You will forgive me for not spoiling your fun by telling you where Kenya is on the list. I can only say you would be better off starting at the bottom of the list. What I will tell you however is that our neighbours, those countries we are looking to get federated with soon are many many positions ahead of us. The list is headed by one of them, in Rwanda and the worst performer, Kenya excepted, is Uganda in 18^th position.

We obviously do not have party lists in Kenya, our MPs suffering instead through a nomination process that makes it difficult to ‘impose' any quota, regardless of their basis. I am also not an advocate of affirmative action, or any such ventures that would create a notion that female leaders are undeserving of high office, having got there purely by engineering the system and not on merit.  This in a society like ours, where male MPs have shown themselves not above ribaldry even in the national chambers, would render female MPs second class representatives with even less authority than they enjoy today.

Ms. Mwatela's rejection- which is plainly what it is, all protestations aside- is an especially painful blow because she was not just qualified but eminently so. Various correspondents have skirted around this issue citing Presidential discretion, or the fact that the Governor needs to be an economist, or that Prof. Ndung'u himself is eminently qualified. All these are mere strawmen, erected simply for the ease with which they can be blown away.  Ms. Mwatela's distinguished career at the Central Bank, and the way she conducted herself as acting Governor showed without a doubt that she was suited for the job. Her courage, leadership and integrity especially when faced with the sort of struggles that plagued our financial systems in the 1990s, deserved recognition from the State in allowing her to achieve her career's ambition.

State House had an opportunity here to make a grand statement, that when a Kenyan woman deserves some office or position, it will not be denied to her. It matters little how many nominated MPs the parties put on their lists, or how many ministers or assistant ministers are appointed to high office of someone else's choosing if at the same time the very government is unwilling to grant on merit accession to organisational primacy. For far too long, Kenyan women have been given; have had to accept the decisions of their fathers and male superiors, farmed off to ministries where the stereotype of the nurturing mother (Health or Education) or entertaining hostess ( Culture and Social Services) can be enhanced. All we ask now is that the glass ceiling, especially low in the financial sector is not reinforced when after a career of toil and sacrifice, a woman makes it to the top.