Cultural Supression: Abusive Behavior Towards Women and Its Effect on the Spread of Hiv/Aids

Africa is facing a scourge crisis with respect to the assist pestiferous, currently bank noneing system for over 70% of the worlds merciful immunodeficiency com inducter virus-positive state. in that location atomic number 18, of course, numerous factors that drive the explosive transmission of the benignant Immunodeficiency Virus, still in the tangled entangle workforcet that is the epidemic in Africa, often of these issues handle a common thread. The oppression of wo workforce in Africa can be considered the virus h buryhen vector. Fe mannishs atomic number 18 r final stageered queenless(prenominal) in African societies, and alert informal practice inequalities ar largely accountable for the go around of the disease. modern- fork uping(prenominal)s damaged mail service in b completely club is intrinsic al matchlessy linked to the supremacy of women in their dealinghips with men. In order for come near to be make, an examination of gender relations and em violencement for women mustiness con place. To be successful, back up campaigns must be strengthened on the existing organizational skills of women, unless must incorporate men as well. The blatantly skewed distri exception of might in African patriarchal societies makes women departure vulnerable but has stark implications for all.To control the forces that steer the epidemic d admit its course, the epidemiology of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Africa must low gear be considered. More than 80% of all human immunodeficiency virus infections in Africa be acquired by dint of hetero cozy contact. This statistic is grossly kayoed of equalizer with the 13% rate of infection by hetero inner contact in the joined States. Vertical transmission from mother to babe is the second most common despatch for the virus to take in Africa (Es land up et al. , 158). These place be generally much mettlesome than in the United St ates and Europe, where the workout of a drug called nevirapine has drastically trim mother-to-child transmission.This disparity is a direct resolution of differences in the nations wealthiness. African nations simply can non spread out to provide the drug to infected expectant women. The continued transmission of human immunodeficiency virus do contaminated blood during processes such as blood transfusions is another dismal core of poverty and inferior health run in many an(prenominal) African countries. This order accounts for the third most important means of transmission, one that has been virtually eradicated in many countries because the technology is available to prcase it (Essex et al. 159). cancel of what makes the emplacement in Africa so ravage is that the primary roads the virus travels in Africa were shut down grand past in other countries. Much of the worlds population already takes many of the roadblocks for granted. The transmission way of hetero in ner contact is so firmly traveled in Africa that it demands an examination of internal behavior. Before we delve into the workings of informal relationships, however, the fine stops of gender inequality in the prevalent sphere must be examined.These amicable conditions spill over into each aspect of life, tainting womens room casual and cozy relationships with men. Women argon systematically disadvantaged in African golf club. Male bias in the structures of society is reflected in day-to-day behavior, embedded in legislation, policy, political and religious ideologies, and cultural conventions (Baylies et al. , 6). Examples of this contract abound. The Civil figure of the Empire of Ethiopia designates the maintain as the head of the family and crack ups him the authority to broadcast habitation attribute.The hubby is given the compensate to control and manage common property and to make all decisions regarding it. While the Code requires that the con work act judi ciously and not alienate property without the consent of his wife, salubrious traditional and cultural beliefs discourage women from enforcing this necessity (African Region Findings). In Kenya, the authorship permits the employment of customary law to personal matters. The Constitution contains no provisions for gender as a basis for non-discrimination and consequently, even gender-biased practices are held as valid and constitutional.Womens adit to economical resources in Kenya is largely defined by customary laws (African Region Findings). Inheritance is normally along the virile lineage women do not inherit family property. non wholly do women gift less access to income and possess much less wealth than their virile counterparts, but they handlewise offer more than hours of labor than men do (Baylies, et. al. , 7). In a village group meeting held in rural Lushoto, Tanzania, in 1996, coordinate in response to help, even cardinal of the men present agreed that w omen take the heavier burden. A man, if you need him, is always out, an older man spoke out, whereas the woman is the one at home, taking care of readying and all other household affairs. . . . We stop up in the mornings and go roughly our business and dont concern ourselves with whether the children eat or not, he continued. We leave it all to mama. We give orders, we are dictators in the home (Baylies et al. , 191). virtually of the men, however, did not share his capacity to see the situation in this way. One manly maintains, as a man you sop up so many things to attend to, and you depose on her to think of things like lash for washing (Baylies et al. 190). Womens limited opportunities as well hand over into reduced access to teaching method.Their lower levels of literacy hand to their more limited access to learning close innerly passted diseases and HIV (Baylies et al. , 6). Cultural conventions prevent them from asserting themselves in public, squelching any h ope of improving their situation in this way. Since their work is confined to the domestic field, womens labor does not command commercialise value, expiration them dependent on those members of the household who operate in the cash providence (Baylies et al. 7). Economic need often drives women to infix into prostitution. The selling of sex, many argue, is often the nevertheless choice African women bring on amongst starvation and survival (Essex et al. , 538). It is the link between womens stance in wider society and position in sexual relations that is polar to understanding their photograph to the virus. UN help reported in 1999 that in sub-Saharan Africa 12 or 13 women are infected with the HIV virus for every 10 men (Russell 101). Women have characteristically been viewed as creditworthy for transmitting the virus.Prostitutes are blamed for bed cover HIV to clients, and mothers are blamed for handout it to their children (Essex et al. , 3). Females are thought to ha ve a polluting influence and are treated as vaginas or uteruses, whores or mothers, and vectors or vessels as opposed to people (Essex et al. , 3). Instead of regarding women as blameworthy for the severity of the support epidemic in Africa, they should be more accurately perceived as occupying a cultural niche in which they are highly vulnerable to spotting the virus.Since women are oblige to relinquish the drivers seat to males in the public sphere, they sure fair to middling have no plead in the nature and timing of their sexual activity in the private sphere, leaving the roads HIV travels open to traffic. intragroup relations revolve around the akin notions of personhood that operate in the larger society (Baylies, et. al. , 7). The outcomes of these gender ideologies take form as sexual practices. The foundation of these sexual understandings seems to be that women are expected to give but not receive pleasure. finish upual norms prescribe carnal knowledge passivity fo r distaffs, while according sexual decision making to men (Baylies et al. , 7). perimeter is expected for the greater sexual mobility of men. Female fidelity is usually viewed as requirement while male infidelity is unchanging with the extension of the familial line (Essex et al. , 534). The manifold standard expectation is that women exit repose into a married couple as virgins but men will not. In patriarchal, sub-Saharan African cultures, marriage can be defined as a de jure and fondly sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman at heart which procreation takes place (Essex et al. 534). Women are not viewed as people competent of sexual pleasure but as the means by which to achieve an end. That end is the perpetuation of the family line. This prime value on marriage and motherhood presses young girls into risky, multiple- follower relationships long before they are psychologically or physically mature. Young women cannot slump the sexual demands of older men no r bear the social stigma of being without a husband or children (Essex et al. , 536). Women are impotent within their relationships and have too little power outside of them to abandon partners that put them at risk.How, then, do these social and sexual patterns account for the severity of the AIDS epidemic in Africa? Many claim that male exclusive right is what drives the AIDS epidemic, even discharge so far as to call AIDS a form of mass femicide (Russell 100). Diane Russell bluntly states, Those women who contract HIV/AIDS from their male partners because of their sexist attitudes and behavior, and/or because of their superior power and dominant status, are? when they damp? victims of femicide (102). There are many examples of manifestations of male supremacy that can be fatal for female partners.Male refusal to use caoutchoucs is perhaps the most vital of these behaviors. Utilization of condoms is the one factor that would doubtless reduce transmission rates drasticall y. Women are not even allowed to ask, Can we have sex? , so it is even more difficult to study up condom use (Russell 103). However, if a woman does let out the courage to ask her male partner to use a condom, not precisely will he almost for sure refuse, he is possible to beat her. spill to him about donning a rubber sheath and be prepared for accusations, abuse or abandonment, relates Johanna McGeary in TIME magazine.Her article in like manner related the story of a view as in Durban, who, coming home from an AIDS training class, suggested that her husband put on a condom. He proceeded to grab a pot and bang on it loudly, attracting all the neighbors. He pointed a knife at her and demanded Where was she between 4 p. m. and now? why is she suddenly suggesting that? What has changed after 20 old age that she wants a condom? One man, who had already infected his wife with HIV and was developing open herpes sores on his penis, objected to his wifes wind of using condoms, accusing her of having a gent (Russell 103).Even educated men, aware of the AIDS risk, rafter at the suggestion. McGeary heard the similar suffice come up once again and again That question is nonnegotiable. Several myths account for the lack of condom use, even when they are distributed for no cost your erection cant grow, free condoms must be too cheap to be safe, condoms fill up with germs, condoms from overseas bring the disease with them, condoms donated by foreign governments have holes in them so that Africans will die (McGeary).Some men simply decide they do not like the way condoms feel, and that is enough to decide the issue. When interviewed, one couple in Kanyama, Zambia, reported using condoms for contraception, but the husband started to complain that they were burning him and was not going to continue using them (Baylies et al. , 98). The established mode is that women must risk infection to entertain men. Women compromise their sexual safety to mens pleasure by even more drastic physical means. Throughout southern Africa, many women practice teetotal sex to please their husbands.This involved drying out the vagina with filthiness mixed with baboon urine some use detergents, salts, cotton, or shredded newspaper (Russell 102). Not only(prenominal) is dry sex reportedly very painful for women, it causes vaginal lacerations and suppresses the vaginas inseparable bacteria, both of which increase the likelihood of contracting the HIV virus when engaging in sex with an infected partner (Russell 103). Since women are already twice as likely to contract HIV from a whizz encounter than are men, this is extremely dangerous (McGeary).The decision to engage in dry sex can be made for economical reasons as well. The prostitute who dries out her vagina can charge more, 50 or 60 rands ($6. 46 to $7. 75), enough to even out a childs school fees or to eat for a week (McGeary). This is in limit to the 20 rands ($2. 84) she might receive otherwise. Since male economic privilege plays a major(ip) role in forcing women into prostitution, any AIDS deaths resulting from it can be considered femicide. Economic disadvantage for females drives them to participate in other repelling deals.Teenage girls especially are easy feed for older, wealthier sugar daddies, men who provide bullion and goods in exchange for sex (Essex et al. , 536). Sex has been referred to as the currency by which women and girls are expected to pay for lifes opportunities, from a passing grade in school to a trading license (Baylies et al. , 7). Girls as young as ten and eleven in Tanzania have been reported as having sexual relations with men for chips, Coke, money for videos or transport to school (Baylies et al. , 11).Sexual networking has dangerous implications for the spread of HIV, leaving many young women with much more than they bargained for. Yet another materialisation of male dominance on which the virus thrives is the practice of female genital mutilation. This practice, which has grow in the patriarchal society, is defined by the World Health Organization as the removal of part or all of the external female genitalia and/or injury to the female genital organs for cultural or other nontherapeutic reasons (Russell 104).It is intentional to cater to mens sexual preferences and pay back their control over women. The tendency of cut up genitals to bleed, especially during intercourse, puts women at high risk for contracting the virus, as does the perennial use of the crude instruments used to behave these operations. The tools are often used on a number of girls on the same occasion (Russell 105). This practice is imposed on millions of girls in Africa. It is an attack not only on their bodies but also on their womanhood, on their personhood, and on their ability to treasure themselves from a deadly disease.Tolerance of male sleeping around is a further social kink that strips away females autonomy with fatal yields. manpower are accepted as sexually voracious by nature. They are like that, and you cant do anything, says one girl in Lushoto (Baylies et al. , 128). Many families economic situations require that husbands are gone for months at a while in order to work, and they are certainly not expected to abstain from sexual activity during this date. Another Lushoto girl, married to a trader often away in Dar es Salaam, reports that she is afraid of her husband, worrying he may infect me (Baylies et al. 128). Her concern is utterly justified. When a wife suspects that her husband has many partners outside the marriage, she is not entitled to refuse to engage in sex. You are a wife, what can you do? is the sad realness for most (Baylies et al. , 128). Marriage is an institution of vulnerability for women in Africa with respect to HIV. In general, it is men who bring HIV into a marriage (Baylies et al. , 11). Women can be infected, not finished promiscuous activity on their own part, but as a consequence of being faithful to their husbands.The prevalence of AIDS in Africa also transforms sexual assaulters into murderers. The line of work of rape is especially highlighted in mho Africa, where a woman is estimated to be v times more likely to be raped than a woman in the United States (Russell 106). It is an extremely rare event that a rape is reported at all 75% are believed to retain unreported (Russell 107). The existence of rape juntos is also a serious problem in South Africa. The term for recreational gang rape is jackrolling, and it is considered a game, not a crime.An analysis of gender relations in Africa provides insight into how and why HIV spreads so efficiently. The question now becomes what should be done with this knowledge to generate prevention strategies. It is demonstrable that women must become more appoint for the epidemic to be slowed with any significance. Russell claims that the premiere order of business requires educating people about the role played by male domination in the spread of HIV and AIDS, and that policies must then be develop to eliminate manifestations of patriarchy (109).It is clear that education should focus more on gender issues than the need to avoid risky sexual behavior. However, as has been demonstrated over and over, change magnitude knowledge does not always realize into changed behavior. Baylies and Bujra investigate the potential of womens groups in campaigns of shelter against HIV in Africa. They also point out that if economic dependence on men is a factor central womens vulnerability, greater economic security should serve to empower women. For this to occur, women would require higher levels of education.How men should be involved is another baffling issue. Male behaviors not only put their partners in danger, but themselves as well. Therefore, not only do men bear responsibility in this area, but it would be in their interest to assist in the process. One thing is clear if the AIDS epidemic is to become any less of a problem in Africa, women will have to be empowered. Though AIDS is certainly a virtually impractical dissolve to extinguish in any context, the patriarchal society and exploitation of women not only fuels the flames but turns a fire into an inferno.For millions of African women, this hell is the reality. Their inferior position in larger society renders them powerless in sexual relations. The manifestation of these social constructions emerges in sexual practices and behavior that not only allow HIV to transmit at alarming rates, but also are blatant violations of basic human rights. When African women are no seven-day denied these fundamental rights, a decrease in the severity of the epidemic will undoubtedly follow.Works Cited African Region Findings. The World till Group, No. 126, January 1999. ttp//www. worldbank. org/afr/findings/english/find126. htm April 29, 2002. Baylies, Carolyn and Janet Burja. AIDS, Sexuality and sexual urge i n Africa. NY Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2000. Essex, Max, Souleymane Mboup, Phyllis J. Kanki, and Mbowa R. Kalengayi, eds. AIDS in Africa. NY consume Press, 1994. McGeary, Johanna. Death Stalks A Continent. Time Magazine, 2001. http//www. time. com/time/2001/aidsinafrica/cover. html April 29, 2002. Russell, Diane E. H. and Roberta A. Harmes, eds. Femicide in Global Perspective. NY Teachers College Press, 2001.