The Gender Politics Of Hiv Aids In Women

From their posts at the center of the pandemic - in the laboratory, the academy, clinics, and community based organizations - experts such as Evelynn Hammonds, Risa Denenberg, Michelle Murrain, and Paul Farmer criticize blind spots in the recognition and treatment of HIV in women and articulate accessible and practical solutions to specific areas of difficulty.

Gender issues are central to the causes and impact of the ongoing AIDS epidemic. The editors bring together cutting edge contemporary scholarship on gender and AIDS in one volume. They address questions related to gender and sexuality, how women and men live the epidemic differently and how such differences lead to different outcomes. The volume joins research on Africa, Asia and Latin America and illustrates how the epidemic has different gendered characteristics, causes and consequences in different regions. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate the fundamental ways that gender influences the spread of the disease, its impact and the success of prevention efforts. This scholarly, interdisciplinary volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the themes and issues of gender, AIDS and global public health and informs students, policy makers and practitioners of the complexity of the gendered nature of AIDS.

Gender issues are central to the causes and impact of the ongoing AIDS epidemic. The editors bring together cutting edge contemporary scholarship on gender and AIDS in one volume. They address questions related to gender and sexuality, how women and men live the epidemic differently and how such differences lead to different outcomes. The volume joins research on Africa, Asia and Latin America and illustrates how the epidemic has different gendered characteristics, causes and consequences in different regions. Collectively, the chapters demonstrate the fundamental ways that gender influences the spread of the disease, its impact and the success of prevention efforts. This scholarly, interdisciplinary volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the themes and issues of gender, AIDS and global public health and informs students, policy makers and practitioners of the complexity of the gendered nature of AIDS.

This collection of essays addresses the broadening array of issues on the agenda of the women's health movements of the 1980s and 1990s, just as a previous collection, "Women and Health: The Politics of Sex in Medicine", gathered contributions from the earlier wave of the women's health movement in the 1970s. The papers in both volumes are selected from the "International Journal of Health Services", edited by Vicente Navarro. The essays in this volume were originally published in the 1980s and early 1990s. Together, they present a framework for understanding the struggles over women's health that have occurred in this time period, and provide specific analyses of women's health in relation to race/ethnicity and class, the work of health care, the health of women workers, international reproductive health, sexuality, AIDS, and public health policy.

Workable Sisterhood is an empirical look at sixteen HIV-positive women who have a history of drug use, conflict with the law, or a history of working in the sex trade. What makes their experience with the HIV/AIDS virus and their political participation different from their counterparts of people with HIV? Michele Tracy Berger argues that it is the influence of a phenomenon she labels "intersectional stigma," a complex process by which women of color, already experiencing race, class, and gender oppression, are also labeled, judged, and given inferior treatment because of their status as drug users, sex workers, and HIV-positive women. The work explores the barriers of stigma in relation to political participation, and demonstrates how stigma can be effectively challenged and redirected. The majority of the women in Berger's book are women of color, in particular African Americans and Latinas. The study elaborates the process by which these women have become conscious of their social position as HIV-positive and politically active as activists, advocates, or helpers. She builds a picture of community-based political participation that challenges popular, medical, and scholarly representations of "crack addicted prostitutes" and HIV-positive women as social problems or victims, rather than as agents of social change. Berger argues that the women's development of a political identity is directly related to a process called "life reconstruction." This process includes substance- abuse treatment, the recognition of gender as a salient factor in their lives, and the use of nontraditional political resources.

What has been the role of the Indian state in providing health-care facilities to women with HIV/AIDS? Looking at the issue from a gender and human rights perspective, the book discusses provisions taken by the government in providing health care to patients in India while also examining how this has influenced society’s perception of the disease as well as the patients themselves. The book explores in depth the dimensions of health-care accessibility, gender equity measures and strategies used by the State as well as the role played by civil society organizations and activists. Further, this book contributes to the fields of public health, policy studies, community health and gender, and is important for policymakers as well as NGOs and human rights activists working in this sector.

The current HIV and AIDS regime has opened up unknown vistas in intellectual pursuits and knowledge creation. One such newly opened up area of research is studying HIV and AIDS in relation to gender issues. However, owing to the devastating nature of the epidemic, most studies tend to focus on women merely as an "at risk" population leaving aside the wider sociological dimensions that pertain to women's sexuality in general, issues of AIDS related stigma and discrimination and how it impacts on women's careers as economic contributors to society. The uniqueness of the present study lies in the fact that it embodies the author's triangulated research into the tripartite dimensions of HIV and AIDS, women's sexuality, and gender-sociology, all against the backdrop of analysing actual experiences of career women in Kenyan universities.

For many women, the advice “Use a condom!” is not enough to help protect them from HIV infection. As Women and AIDS reveals, “negotiating” safer sex practices is a very complex issue for women who are involved in relationships where they do not enjoy physical, social, or economic equality. The book’s authors maintain that the key to curbing the spread of HIV and to caring for those already infected--is communication. Women and AIDS is the first volume to address HIV/AIDS and women from a communication perspective. This helpful guidebook addresses how women might achieve safer sexual and drug injection practices with partners, but it also explores women’s negotiation of the health care system as patients, medical research subjects, and caregivers. It challenges traditional assumptions about the relationship between care providers and patients and the meaning of patient compliance and raises important questions about gender, race, and class that are exacerbated by the epidemic. Designed to ground interventions in the realities of women’s lives, Women and AIDS discusses what women can do to get around communication and health care obstacles. To this end, you will learn about: using the media for HIV-related social action and to promote women’s views of HIV and sexuality prison health care for HIV-positive women cultural constructions of sex and drug sharing in a variety of communities long-term changes that will empower women delivering an HIV-positive diagnosis to patients gender roles and caregiving the language we use to talk about “Third World” women and “Asian AIDS” women AIDS filmmakers/videographers For the benefit of AIDS activists, health care providers, and counselors, Women and AIDS discusses women and their communication and awareness from virtually every angle. This book analyzes situations where communication breaks down--from the woman who can’t openly discuss safe sex with her partner, to the drunk college student who “hooks up,” to the doctor who gives an HIV-positive diagnosis without compassion--and offers communication solutions. This will help women avoid such risks, establish communication and safety in their lives, and construct meaningful roles in relationship to HIV/AIDS.