Gender makes headlines in Tanzania, as when the president attacks birth control and
endorses kicking pregnant girls out of school or when fake fingernails and eyelashes are
banned from Parliament. Less uproar accompanies government action that actually promotes gender equality, such as the 2016 Constitution guaranteeing women’s right to own and use land; a 2016 plan to make primary education free for all; the 2017 Legal Aid Act recognizing paralegals, who can
play an important role in women’s empowerment; and a promise in 2018 to institute a tax exemption on sanitary towels. Both outrage and progress occur against a background in which women’s rights are far from secure, in areas ranging from violence (40% of women aged 15-49 have suffered physical
violence) to representation in Parliament (63% male) to unequal pay and land ownership.
Given these divergent trends and realities, how do Tanzanians perceive issues of gender
equality? The latest Afrobarometer survey findings show that most Tanzanians support equal
rights and opportunities for women. Most also think – or thought before the latest
pronouncements on pregnant schoolgirls, birth control, and fake fingernails – that the
government is doing a good job of promoting gender equality, and that in fact parity has
been achieved on key issues of education, work, and land ownership.
