Income Differentials and Gender Inequality: Wives Earning More than their Husbands in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

An anthropological study of women in Dar es Salaam who earn higher incomes than their husbands. The subordination of women to men in Africa is widespread, and yet there are women living in this environment who challenge the social order, defy stereotypes, frame their own economic initiatives and democratic demands, achieve autonomy, and define their own truths and morality. The research exposes the social construction of gender in everyday life, pointing to the contradictory nature of gender relations in a dynamic urban context. The voices of individual women and men from different social classes are included alongside institutional viewpoints. Luce Cloutier is an anthropologist who has worked in Dar es Salaam combining elements of liberal, socialist, and radical feminism.