“The Girl Is Brought Up Knowing She's Nothing”: Listening to Voices of Tanzanian Women and Girls

Abstract

Despite positive changes made in Tanzania to promote gender equality, discrimination toward women and girls still exists, especially in some remote areas. Often such inequality exists within family, schools, and the community, leading to a devaluing of girls that results in normalization of their exploitation. The author discusses findings from qualitative research with women (n = 30) and secondary schoolgirls (n = 400), conducted in northern Tanzania, focused on this overarching theme: women and girls have historically not been valued. Using the ecological–transactional model, the author discusses individual-, micro-, meso-, and macro-level recommendations for interventions that could empower the next generation of daughters.