Tanzania is engaged in a struggle to become a democratic socialist and developed nation. The implications of socialist ideology for actual policy planning and implementation still have not been fully clarified. Certain questions concerning the economic base are especially important, in particular the desirable relationship of every citizen to the production processes of the country. The possibility of further alienation of the worker from the process of production in the context of nationalisation and state-controlled industrialisation has already been identified by several observers.1 The pervasive nature of the dual economy in the ‘development of under-development’ has also been analysed with respect to Tanzania.2 What is consistently disregarded, however, is the peculiar place of women in the midst of change and counter-change.