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HIV and Women

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HIV/AIDS in South Africa 25 Years On

Abstract

South Africa has one of the most extensive HIV epidemics in the world, and one where the burden of the epidemic is most conspicuously borne by young black women. In the interests of epidemiological pragmatism, its course has until fairly recently been mapped through women’s infections. One consequence of which has been to render men relatively invisible, both as HIV-related health-service users and as agents of sexual risk (Greig et al., 2008). Yet women’s subordinate position in a highly patriarchal society has critically shaped their HIV risk, just as the racial patterning of the epidemic has its roots in the political and economic subordination stemming from colonisation and the era of apartheid. This chapter is largely an account of influences on the lives of African women, who carry the overwhelming burden of infection.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Under apartheid, schools were racially segregated and differentially resourced. Africans were deliberately under-educated. The ethos underlying black African education was explained by Dr. HF Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, Senate in 1957, when he said “There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour…Until now he has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from his own community and misled him by showing him the green pastures of European society in which he was not allowed to graze.”

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Robert Morrell for comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Health Research Unit, Pretoria, South Africa

    Rachel Jewkes

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  1. Rachel Jewkes
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  1. Revelstoke Road 12, London, SW18 5PD, United Kingdom

    Poul Rohleder

  2. Springer Science + Business Media, Spring St. 233, New York, 10013, New York, USA

    Leslie Swartz

  3. Center for HIV Intervention and, Prevention, University of Connecticut, Hillside Road 206, Storrs, 06269, Connecticut, USA

    Seth C. Kalichman

  4. Plain Park Bldg, 13th Fl 69-83, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa

    Leickness Chisamu Simbayi

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Jewkes, R. (2009). HIV and Women. In: Rohleder, P., Swartz, L., Kalichman, S., Simbayi, L. (eds) HIV/AIDS in South Africa 25 Years On. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0306-8_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0306-8_3

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