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Given the imperatives of HIV and gender equality, South African researchers have foregrounded transactional sex as a common practice that contributes to unsafe and inequitable sexual practices. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study with a group of students at a South African university, drawing on narratives that speak to the dynamics of reportedly widespread transactional sex on campus. Since many of these relationships are inscribed within unequal power dynamics across the urban-rural and local-‘foreigner’ divides, and across differences of wealth, age and status that intersect with gender in multiple, complex ways, it is argued that these may be exacerbating unsafe and coercive sexual practices among this group of young people. The paper further argues for a critical, reflexive position on transactional sex, pointing to the way in which participants articulate a binaristic response to transactional relationships that simultaneously serves to reproduce a silencing of a discourse on female sexual desires, alongside a simplistic and deterministic picture of masculinity underpinned by the male sexual drive discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon recent research in Durban, South Africa to unravel the complexities of care ethics in the context of humanitarian aid. It investigates how the gendering of care shapes the provision of aid in the context of the HIV in Africa constructing an image of 'virile' and 'violent' African masculinity. Humanitarian organisations construct imagined relations of caring, invoking notions of a shared humanity as informing the imperative to facilitate change. This paper draws on varied examples of research and NGO activity to illustrate how these relations of care are strongly gendered. Humanitarian interventions that invoke universalising conceptions of need could instead draw on feminist care ethics that seeks to balance rights, justice and care in ways that attend to the webs of relationships through which specific lived realities are shaped. Essentialising feminised discourses on care result in a skewed analysis of international crises that invariably construct women (and children) as victims in need of care, which at best ignore the lived experiences of men and, at worst, cast men as virile and violent vectors of disease and social disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how TIME magazine represents sub-Saharan African women in its coverage of HIV/AIDS. As rates of infection escalate across the continent, researchers are increasingly emphasising the need to understand the socioeconomic and cultural contexts that make women particularly vulnerable to infection. Yet popular media representations of AIDS continue to rely on older colonial imageries of Africa as the feminised, diseased 'dark continent'. This article identifies three major themes in TIME's representation of sub-Saharan African women and HIV/AIDS: the metaphor of Africa as a woman in crisis, the construction of women as the means of transmission, and the engendered nature of the debate about the impact of international development policies. It is argued that the reliance on familiar cultural narratives often obscures the epidemiological, economic and cultural realities within which sub-Saharan women live. Not merely a consequence of unprotected sex, AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is also the result of global economics and politics, reflecting the inequities between the West and Africa, male and female, white and black. The paper concludes with a call for further research on the role of representations of HIV/AIDS and its actual routes of transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective in this study was to explore what HIV and AIDS mean to seven- and eight-year-old children in South Africa and how sexual and gender dynamics are embedded within these meanings. Against representations that associate young children with innocence, the paper argues for a more capacious view of young children as sexual and gendered agents with the ability to exercise their rights. In contrast to research that addresses children as relatively passive desexualised beings, focusing on their dependence on adults, their innocence and their need for protection, this paper examines how HIV and AIDS are constructed and negotiated by young people. It views children not simply in terms of their need for sexual rights but as potentially active participants in the negotiation of their rights. Viewing children's rights as highly contested, the notion that young children have sexual rights opens up possibilities for children (including those from marginalised groups) to talk about their concerns and pleasures, fears and hopes, as well as issues relating to sexual rights and resistances. By working creatively with teachers, it may be possible to broaden young children's knowledge of HIV and AIDS and sexuality within a more supportive environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lesotho, men have lower HIV testing rates, less contact with HIV clinical settings and less knowledge of HIV prevention than women. However, women's HIV prevalence has consistently remained higher than men's. This paper explores gender norms, sexual decision-making and perceptions of HIV among a sample of Basotho men and women in order to understand how these factors influence HIV testing and prevention. A total of 200 women and 30 men were interviewed in Lesotho between April and July 2011. Participants reported reluctance among women to share information about HIV prevention and testing with men, and resistance of men to engage with testing and/or prevention services. Findings demonstrate a critical need for educational initiatives for men, among other strategies, to engage men with HIV testing and prevention. This study highlights how gender issues shape perceptions of HIV and sexual decision-making and underlines the importance of engaging men along with women in HIV prevention efforts. More studies are needed to determine the most effective strategies to inform and engage men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Lesotho, men have lower HIV testing rates, less contact with HIV clinical settings and less knowledge of HIV prevention than women. However, women's HIV prevalence has consistently remained higher than men's. This paper explores gender norms, sexual decision-making and perceptions of HIV among a sample of Basotho men and women in order to understand how these factors influence HIV testing and prevention. A total of 200 women and 30 men were interviewed in Lesotho between April and July 2011. Participants reported reluctance among women to share information about HIV prevention and testing with men, and resistance of men to engage with testing and/or prevention services. Findings demonstrate a critical need for educational initiatives for men, among other strategies, to engage men with HIV testing and prevention. This study highlights how gender issues shape perceptions of HIV and sexual decision-making and underlines the importance of engaging men along with women in HIV prevention efforts. More studies are needed to determine the most effective strategies to inform and engage men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV prevention that uses gender as an analytical framework tends to focus on the ways in which gender inequalities differentially affect women's susceptibility to HIV infection. Men, in this context, are often conceptualized as aggressors, as opposed to women, who are seen as passive victims of HIV infection. In recent years, a growing number of researchers and public health officials have called attention to the pitfalls of this paradigm, pointing out that gender inequities harm both women and men. The first step towards transforming gender norms is to understand what norms currently exist. With this in mind, the aim of this paper is to consolidate and analyse literature that examines structural factors that contribute to the continued HIV infection of men in Swaziland, the country with the highest prevalence of HIV. Gaps in current literature related to this topic are also elucidated. Findings highlight the need for research to be conducted in Swaziland and elsewhere that investigates the effects of gender norms on the wellbeing of both women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the approaches heterosexual men and women in South Africa use to engage their partners in discussions of HIV and risk factors in their relationships. These strategies entail balancing the risks of infection while managing the challenges of maintaining a relationship. In a context in which there is a great deal of insecurity in relationships it is especially challenging to discuss HIV risks with partners. Our findings reveal that concerns about children or the desire to have children provided a legitimate basis for discussing HIV risk with partners. The focus of these discussions is on the future for their children. Research in South Africa should attend to men's and women's desires to have and to raise children. HIV prevention and treatment programmes can capitalise on concerns regarding children, and the future of the family, to engage men and women in discussing mutually acceptable strategies for preventing infection and ensuring safe conception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study carried out in three secondary schools in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Seventy-three Year 12 students took part in eight gender-specific focus group discussions (three female and five male). Irrespective of gender, respondents predominately understood sex as being for the sole purpose of reproduction within marriage. When discussing sex and sexual relationships, young men used explicit language and referred specifically to sexual organs and activities. Young women did not. Less concerned for privacy, young men talked in public spaces and in groups with same-sex peers about sex and sexual expression, whereas young women discussed such matters one-on-one and in private. These gender differences provide useful entry points for developing appropriate sex and HIV education programmes involving young people in PNG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most social science research on HIV has focused on prevention. The arrival of new therapies generated more studies on life with HIV. However most have been carried out in developed world contexts. Much less is known about the vast majority of those living with HIV and dying from AIDS. If this gap is to be filled, more qualitative research will be needed on affected individuals in the developing world and also among migrants who have left developing countries to live in the diaspora. It will also be essential to explore the lives of individuals from the same communities who may experience HIV in very different ways as a result of their gender and/or sexuality. This paper presents findings from three studies of Black African migrants living with HIV in London. It uses an intersectional approach to examine the similarities and the differences between the experiences of heterosexual women, heterosexual men and gay and/or bisexual men. The article highlights the importance of research of this kind both for providing the evidence base for context-specific policy development and also for making better conceptual and theoretical sense of the impact of HIV on individuals and their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the link between heterosexual marriage and women's vulnerability to HIV in Indonesia. In this country, gender relations are currently dominated by traditional beliefs and practices and by religious morality. Data for the current study were collected by means of documentary analysis and archival research as well as by means of expert informant interviews. Findings suggest that traditional practices such as polygamy, early marriage and contract marriage (mut'a) play an important role in enhancing women's likelihood of acquiring HIV within the Indonesian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an exploratory study of the sexual behaviour of young Africans living in Windsor, Canada. Twenty-five face-to-face interviews were conducted with thirteen men and twelve women aged 18 to 25 years. Data analysis enabled the identification of four main themes: awareness and concerns about STIs/HIV; partner's influence on negotiating sex or discussing sexual matters; effects of migration and availability of healthcare on perceptions of own risk and assumptions about HIV prevalence in Canada; and discomfort talking about sex. Findings highlight the influence of gender power in determining the nature of sexual activities and outcomes, as well as risky sexual behaviours. Future actions to decrease HIV transmission in Canada should address these issues in ways that are culturally sensitive and culturally inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In much of HIV/AIDS prevention literature, women are depicted as passive and ill‐equipped to confront the epidemic without external support to enhance their status, autonomy, and negotiation skills. This paper critically evaluates this depiction, using data from in‐depth interviews conducted with married couples in rural Malawi. It focuses on the extent to which married women perceive that they have the ability to protect themselves from infection and on the prevention strategies that they employ. Interview data suggest that women have identified a range of contextually appropriate ways to resist exposure to HIV. These strategies include sitting and discussing the dangers of HIV/AIDS with their husbands; utilizing social networks for advice and as advocates; publicly confronting husbands' girlfriends; and divorcing men who do not adopt safer practices. These locally‐formulated strategies are not likely to be followed consistently, and they may not be the most effective strategies in preventing husbands from straying or protecting women from contracting HIV/AIDS. Their existence, however, demonstrates that rural Malawian women believe that they have some agency to protect themselves; and, they are in fact using locally appropriate strategies to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]