Women Aids And Activism

"Finally, a comprehensive and progressive book about women in the AIDS epidemic. With informative discussion of safer sex and sexuality, HIV testing, treatment and drug trials, public policy, and activism, Women, AIDS & Activism is the only thorough and up-to-date analysis of AIDS issues for women. Looking at issues specific to lesbians, heterosexuals, bisexuals, prostitutes, intravenous drug users, teenagers, mothers, pregnant women, and women in prisons, this book is essential reading for everyone concerned about women's health and the AIDS crisis." --From back cover

Winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary LGBTQ Nonfiction Award and the 2022 NLGJA Excellence in Book Writing Award. Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbriath Award for Nonfiction, the Gotham Book Prize, and the ALA Stonewall Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award. A 2021 New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Longlisted for the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. One of NPR, New York, and The Guardian's Best Books of 2021, one of Buzzfeed's Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2021, one of Electric Literature's Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021, one of NBC's 10 Most Notable LGBTQ Books of 2021, and one of Gay Times' Best LGBTQ Books of 2021. "This is not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician’s bible." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show is the most comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American AIDS activism In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them. Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration—and long-overdue reassessment—of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world.

Womanist AIDS Activism in the United States: “It’s Who We Are” is an in-depth exploration of AIDS advocacy work among Black women. Based on interviews gathered from thirty-six Black women AIDS activists from across the nation, Angelique Harris and Omar Mushtaq examine the ways in which race, gender, sexuality, and spirituality influence the motivations and approaches behind the efforts of the women in the study. The authors use womanism—an epistemological framework that centers the world views of women of color—to better situate this activism within a larger sociocultural and historical context. They find that identity, spirituality, emotions, and experiences with AIDS knowledge all influence the ways in which these activists approached their community activism work. The authors analyze womanism in detail and propose ways in which this framework can be applied more broadly in examinations of community engagement among women of color, and specifically Black women.

Since nearly the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, activists have signaled the inadequacy of prevention strategies and drug protocols that have been developed from research done primarily on men. The latest C.D.C. figures prove they were right; for the first time since the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS cases among white men have fallen, yet the largest increases are among women. Weaving together theoretical, critical, and practical perspectives, Gendered Epidemic is a collection of essays that questions the add women and stir model that governs most HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts. The individual essays describe conflicts and contradictions, and pose new theories and practices. Written by HIV positive women, theorists, teachers, artists, policy makers and activists, it offers insights necessary to stem the spread of HIV.

This book examines ACT UP/LA and their activities protesting against government neglect of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.

An in-depth consideration of women's activism in the AIDS and breast cancer movements.

In the face of life-threatening news, how does our view of life change—and what do we do it transform it? Remaking a Life uses the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a lens to understand how women generate radical improvements in their social well being in the face of social stigma and economic disadvantage. Drawing on interviews with nationally recognized AIDS activists as well as over one hundred Chicago-based women living with HIV/AIDS, Celeste Watkins-Hayes takes readers on an uplifting journey through women’s transformative projects, a multidimensional process in which women shift their approach to their physical, social, economic, and political survival, thereby changing their viewpoint of “dying from” AIDS to “living with” it. With an eye towards improving the lives of women, Remaking a Life provides techniques to encourage private, nonprofit, and government agencies to successfully collaborate, and shares policy ideas with the hope of alleviating the injuries of inequality faced by those living with HIV/AIDS everyday.