WOMEN IN AFRICA 7S developed within this contradictory context. Although influenced fcy different positions within Western-based feminism, women's studies in Africa has had its own specific history. It has also contributed to the development of the emergent third world women's movement against the exploitation and oppression of third world women and all its peoples. In Africa today, there continues to be a struggle for the right to pose the "women's question" independent of global and national state apparatuses, and with6ut being subjugated to oppressive male-dominant structures. Section II briefly analyses the development of women's studies and action at the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in order to clarify specific aspects of that struggle. The achievements of that struggle have not been without major shortcomings. These are revealed by the kinds of issues and topics which have predominated much of the research, and the form and practices adopted in the research process. Some of these problems are presented in section III. Popular history provided a powerful means of approaching many issues, and empowering its participants (section IV). The analysis is concretised through reference to Tanzania and Africa. Nevertheless, its concerns cross national and continental borders. Third world women face the threat of the same dominant global forces. Moreover, women in East Africa share a common history with the women of many Arab and Asian nations tied into the history of the Indian Ocean Trade Complex. A story of slavery and plunder, it is also a story of the expansion of Islam and the creation of a new Swahili civilisation. This common history could provide the basis for unified action and collective analysis. II Two aspects of women's struggles at the University of Dar es Salaam are presented here1. One is based on the efforts by women academicians to fight against sex discrimination in working conditions of academic women. The nature oPwomen's studies' at the University is the other. Women workers have had their own struggles, as have women students. However, neither of these groups have tried and/or succeeded to organise themselves as women or to articulate their concerns as women workers or women students. Towards the end of the 1960s, the issue of sex discrimination in hiring and promotion policies of the University's administration was raised. A public memorandum was written by one woman academician and circulated to staff and women students with the assistance of supportive undergraduate students. Later, a group of women academicians organised around the same issue. They were reacting to the refusal of senior male academics to hire, a woman graduate who had passed with honours. A memorandum was written, which included data on the hiring practices of the University, and it was signed by all the participants. After a position was finally offered to the graduate concerned^ (he momentum of the group faded away. During the mid-70s, women academics began to organise themselves in one group to combat issues of sex discrimination in hiring, promotions, work and living conditions, access to travel and study allowances and so on.