How to be a 'proper' woman in the time of AIDS

Abstract

How to Be a ‘Proper’ Women in the Time of AIDS is written as a piece of music for multiple voices. The voices of Katja Jassey and Stella Nyanzi – both professional women, both mothers, both anthropologists, one European, one African – are intertwined with the voices of other women (and men) telling about their lives coping with AIDS and/or struggling against the epidemic. Personal storylines and interviews are interspersed with analytical reflections and a string of amazing photographs of African HIV/AIDS billboard posters, captured by Suzy Bernstein. Unconventional questions are posed: What kind of sexuality is portrayed in the anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns? Why is there such an absence of messages that would include or make sense to those living with HIV? What does it mean to be a ‘proper’ woman in the time of AIDS? The authors decided that instead of producing yet another publication citing the number of people infected, they would reflect on their own stories and professional experience, how they had come to think and react to HIV, and how their different positions influenced their understandings. By doing so they manage to create new insights and open new perspectives. They don’t say what is right and wrong. They say stop! Stop awhile and think about yourselves. Stop and think for yourselves.

<p>CONTENTS -- The beginning -- Sexuality, development and colonial history -- The morality of medicines -- Respectability and unions for love, marriage or sex in the face of AIDS -- New beginnings? -- Epilogue – Striking a balance</p>