Contesting Democracy: HIV/AIDS and the Achievement of Gender Equality in South Africa

Interrogates progress toward gender equality in South Africa through the lens of HIV/AIDS. An analysis of the relationship between HIV /AIDS and gender reveals how gender inequalities have fueled the epidemic in South Africa. The HIV/AIDS epidemic reemphasizes the role of the private in subordinating women and compels one to confront the power that men have over women, and how this is differentially constructed through cultural norms about gender and sexuality. In confronting this power, women also need to uncover the ways that women have opposed, resisted and subverted it. These are necessary prerequisites to finding new strategies for achieving gender equality in the public and private spheres. (Original abstract - amended)