“If I Had Stayed with My Husband, My Children Would Have No Future”: Breadwinner Womanhood in Urban Northern Tanzania

Over the past twenty years, women in northern Tanzania have increasingly chosen to become the sole providers for their families. They have either sought separation or remained single to avoid attachment to spouses who might potentially sabotage their business ventures, a rational concern since many men have seen their social value lowered and disrespected when their female spouses achieved economic success. This new independence and self-sufficiency are part of broader socio-economic changes that have challenged men’s position as the sole providers of the household in the modern, capitalist project. Some women have come to feel that the lack of income from their spouse, even combined with their small businesses, is insufficient for the upward mobility they seek. Women therefore often find a way to separate and become the sole breadwinner for themselves and their children. While single motherhood is generally not favoured in society, by becoming a breadwinning mother through providing for the well-being and socio-economic mobility of her family and social environment, women raise their social value. This chapter untangles the notion of breadwinning from masculinities, which are often seen as inevitably and exclusively connected. Instead, I argue for the existence of a distinct breadwinner womanhood. I argue that the women’s ways of generating income, often by means of women’s groups and saving associations, but also their reasoning for their breadwinning by using the concept of feeding, and their investment of money in education and family make these practices inherently female.