Contested ‘respectability’: gender and labour in the life stories of Tanzanian women and men in the hospitality industry

ABSTRACT

Although ‘disrespectability’ has been discerned as an important discourse that accompanies Tanzanian women’s engagement in hospitality jobs, it remains unclear how they counter this devaluation and whether their male co-workers are affected as well. Using a life-story methodology with a sample of 20 male and female employees, this study shows how men and women are unevenly hit by the assignment of ‘shame’ and how they resist. Better pay and more professional training could improve workers’ standing, but might also trigger new processes of closure detrimental to gender equity.

KEYWORDS:

• Respectability
• labour
• gender
• hospitality industry
• Tanzania

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Jan Kuever, Anna Ransiek and 17 former students of ‘Cultural Anthropology and Tourism’ at the University of Iringa, Tanzania for cooperation in fieldwork. The comments of two anonymous reviewers helped to improve a draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Gundula Fischer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7658-786X

Notes

1. Fischer, “Recruitment and Female Labour”; “Tanzanian Women’s Move.”

2. Iliffe, Honour in African History.

3. Hungwe, “Putting Them in Their Place,” 37.

4. Hungwe, “Putting Them in Their Place”; Jefremovas, “Loose Women, Virtuous Wives”; Khumalo, McKay, and Freimund, “Who is a ‘Real Woman’?”.

5. Khumalo, McKay, and Freimund, “Who is a ‘Real Woman’?”; Hungwe, “Putting Them in Their Place.”

6. Ogden, “Reproductive Identity”; Hungwe, “Putting Them in Their Place”; White, The Comforts of Home.

7. Christiansen, “‘Respectable Women’”; Ogden, “Reproductive Identity.”

8. Martin, “The Pentecostal Gender Paradox,” 56. For Tanzania see Lindhardt, “Men of God.”

9. Zalwango et al., “Parenting and Money Making”; Van den Borne, Trying to Survive. For Tanzania see Pietilä, Gossip, Markets, and Gender.

10. Iliffe, Honour in African History; Khumalo, McKay, and Freimund, “Who is a ‘Real Woman’?”.

11. Mbilinyi, “‘City’ and ‘Countryside’,” 91.

12. White, The Comforts of Home, 20.

13. Ibid., 18.

14. Pariser, “Masculinity and Organized Resistance,” 109–11.

15. Mbilinyi, “Runawaywives in Colonial Tanganyika.”

16. Willis, Potent Brews, 211–2; Lindhardt, “Men of God.”

17. Ivaska, “‘Age of Minis’,” 225 and Bujra, Serving Class, 177.

18. Ivaska, “‘Anti-Mini Militants’.”

19. Mascarenhas, Gender Profile of Tanzania, 31–3.

20. Bryceson, “Gender Relations,” 61–2.

21. Beckham et al., “If You Have Children”; Talle, “Sex for Leisure”; Bryceson, Jonsson, and Verbrugge, “Prostitution or Partnership?”.

22. Ivaska, “‘Age of Minis’,” 227–8.

23. URT, Integrated Labour Force Survey, 39.

24. Fischer, “Recruitment and Female Labour”; “Tanzanian Women’s Move.”

25. Rosenthal, “Healing Effects of Storytelling,” 917–8.

26. URT, Population and Housing Census, 104.

27. Gössling and Schulz, “Tourism-related Migration,” 55; Lindhardt, “Men of God.”

28. Wamoyi et al., “‘Women’s Bodies are Shops’.”

29. Silberschmidt, “Disempowerment of Men.”

30. Ulandssekretariatet, Labour Market Profile, 29.

31. URT, Integrated Labour Force Survey, 39.

32. Haram, “‘Prostitutes’ or Modern Women?”

33. Talle, “Sex for Leisure”; Bryceson, Jonsson, and Verbrugge, “Prostitution or Partnership?”.

34. URT, Demographic and Health Survey, 110; Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, Women & Men, 24–9.

35. See Talle for teenage pregnancies in her sample.

36. Pinock, “Punishment Won’t Stop.”

37. URT, Human Resource Needs.