ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides statistical evidence of the continuing marginalization of women in Tanzanian society. It analyses the position of women in relation to the irrigation system of a village in northern Tanzania. The book also provides a valuable analysis of the complexities and contradictions of patriarchal domination. It contributes to debates about the potential of using the state, in Tanzania, to empower women. The book explains that the stress is less on ambivalence than upon the ways in which men try to manipulate the categories of tradition and modernity in their own gender interests and uses them to cloud the real relations of power between the sexes. It examines the positive identification of men with tradition. The book explores the topic in an unusual setting - a beekeeping camp.
