Demonising women in the era of AIDS: On the relationship between cultural constructions of both HIV/AIDS and femininity
- 12 January 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Society in Transition
- Vol. 32 (1) , 38-46
- https://doi.org/10.1080/21528586.2001.10419028
Abstract
Results from an ethnographic study carried out in a community within the Durban area concerning the meanings and symbolic representations given to sexual activities and to HIV/AIDS are presented in this article. The interpretation of the field-work material draws on the literatures of the genderification of HIV/AIDS and on studies of the symbols used to signify AIDS. The Zulu interpretation of AIDS is shown to be intimately bound up with the overall socio-cultural construction of femininity, in which women are seem as both the sources and disseminators of the disease.Keywords
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