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Abstract

This paper is about the evolution of early post-colonial women in Tanganyika and the dilemma they encountered in balancing between family obligations and growing up in professional career. To understand such contradicting options, the paper situates the discussion from the perspectives of women’s narratives gathered from the printed media of the early 1960s to mi-1960s. The paper uses interviews gathered during this time by media specialists, newspaper columnists, and fans of women’s life histories who wrote stories and narratives of young women of Tanganyika. Their target groups were middle-class women: teachers, secretaries, wives of renowned politicians, business women and social activists. Such interviews covered wide career areas and livelihood in general: fashion, professional life, hobbies, modelling, education, home life, child care and politics. The efforts of these women enthusiasts to try to search for a modern woman in a post-colonial setting unveiled complex discussions about their personal journeys towards modernity, their worries, their interactions, and their internationality. The interviewed women were educated, internationalist, ambitious, and positively prepared to embrace opportunities and challenges that the new nation was bringing about. The stories of these women help to address contemporary issues that restrain women from reaching their career choices. The paper concludes by asserting that as far as women are concerned, the option between motherhood and career development will remain critical until when men agree to share the burden of taking care of children, and the home in general.

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