Girl Power?

Hi everyone! I’m once again refining my views on the “ABC” concept of HIV/AIDS prevention campaign going on in Botswana right now.  The third part of “ABC”- condomize- encourages sexual partners to use condoms in order to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS during sex.  This, however, assumes that in heterosexual relationships, women have equal power in the relationship to men’s power, and that they can demand condom use by their male partner. 

Last week, we talked about how Western-designed HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns fail to take Tswana culture into full consideration, and therefore are failing to live up to their full potential.  This is another example of that.  In most places in the West (not all, but most), women have mostly equal rights to those of men.  In the U.S., the 1960’s and 1970’s saw a political and social movement toward women’s rights to put them on equal footing with men.  Although there are still instances of discrimination against women in the workplace, women have achieved more equality with men. 

This isn’t the case in Botswana, or at least, not when it comes to relationship power standards between men and women.  As Cathy McIlwaine and Kavita Datta note in their article, “Endangered Youth? Youth, Gender, and Sexualities in Urban Botswana,” traditionally, women aren’t allowed to deny their husbands sex.  According to traditional culture, men may beat their wives until they agree to sex.   Going up against physical force like that, few women are likely to push the issue of using a condom if their male partner doesn’t want one.

There’s also an economic aspect to it.  In the article “Going Beyond ‘ABC’ to Include ‘GEM’:  Critical Reflections on Progress in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic,” Dworkin and Ehrhardt use the term “feminization of HIV/AIDS,” meaning that women are at the highest risk for HIV/AIDS because of contextual and cultural elements.  Nearly 50% of HIV-infected people worldwide in 2004 were women, and factors like gender inequality and denial of education and work opportunities contribute to that.

These are factors that can’t be solved simply by telling people to abstain, be faithful, and wear a condom.  These are social structure problems that are perpetuated through years of gender roles, stereotypes, and cultural norms.  Fixing them is going to take programs with deep-set roots designed by Batswana in order to address culture norms disregarded or unrecognized by Western programs.  Keeping girls in school gives them a better chance at finding a good job, which makes them less likely to be pressured into marriage for economic reasons or selling themselves for sex, which increases their risk for contracting HIV.  That’s a simplified version of a solution, and it’s certainly not the only way to help women reduce their risk for HIV/AIDS, but it certainly would help.

I thought it was really interesting in Rob Pattman’s article, “Men Make a Difference:  The Construction of Gendered Student Identities at the University of Botswana,” how there’s a double standard for men and women when it comes to drinking alcohol.  When I think of a university, I tend to think of it as a liberal place and more likely to be gender-equal.  This undoubtedly is based on my own experiences at WSU.  However, I was really surprised to read about how men display their masculinity through drinking and hanging out in “Uganda”- the campus bar.  Women, on the other hand, are seen as loose or improper if they drink. 

It just made me wonder what the Tswana students will think of us when we go over there.  If the ladies in our group ever mentioned going out to a bar or having a typical college party experience, will the Batswana judge us?  Will they think of us as “loose”?  How will they expect us to interact with the males in our group?  Will we be the stereotypical immoral Americans?  These are just the questions that popped into my head, and I guess we’ll just have to see when the time comes!