Targeting men for a change
How can women fight against AIDS without the cooperation of men? A recent global shift towards the recognition that men are driving the AIDS epidemic raises two key challenges: to devise campaigns which treat men as individuals, and secondly to remember that what needs changing is not individual men and women but the relations between them.
Women in Tanzania and Zambia are actively addressing the HIV epidemic, according to recent research by the universities of Bradford and Leeds. Women are the main carers when people fall sick, for example, they support orphans and provide the backbone for most voluntary efforts to raise awareness and change behaviour.
Yet, almost everywhere women struggle with minimal support from men and inadequate resources. In some cases men even sabotage their efforts. Yet there are indications of minor shifts in male behaviour born out of a desire for self-preservation, that are nevertheless beneficial to women. Women are increasingly prepared, as men are beginning to realise, to challenge male dominance. Further findings indicate that men:
- still make key family decisions, appropriate the product of women’s labour, expect to marry younger women and have extra-marital relationships
- have a high risk of contracting HIV from multiple partnering
Some changes are evident, however. Men:
- realise that their propensity to control women is undermined by women’s increasing economic and social independence
- have begun talking about how to protect themselves from AIDS whilst still asserting male prerogatives
- often counsel younger men to control their sexual urges or to use condoms
- claim they are having safer sex with fewer partners – condom sales have risen dramatically.
- rethink gender roles when forced to care for the sick or orphans.
AIDS campaigns are now beginning to target men, but they are often confined to condom promotion and personal risk awareness. Campaigns tackle particular groups such as long-distance truck drivers or army personnel rather than men in general. They appeal to men’s self-interest rather than challenging their power over women or promoting mutuality between the sexes.
How can men be encouraged to rethink gendered disparities? Challenges include:
- Targeting men in AIDS campaigns whilst still recognising women’s need for support and resources.
- Finding ways to talk with men about sexuality and safety that link their self-interest to responsibility for their wives, partners and children (including those as yet unborn).
- Recognising that all sexually-active men may be at risk, rather than the minority who appear promiscuous.
- Persuading politicians and other men in the public eye to acknowledge the issue and to promote men’s responsibility.
Contributor(s): Janet Bujra, Carolyn Baylies
Source(s): Date: 08 January 2001
See also Targeting men for a change: AIDS discourse and activism in Africa Agenda 44, Durban by Janet Bujra (2000).
AIDS, Sexuality and Gender in Africa: Collective Strategies and Struggles in Tanzania and Zambia Routledge, London by Janet Bujra and Caroline Baylies (2000).
| Further information: Janet Bujra Department of Peace Studies University of Bradford Bradford BD7 1DP, UK Tel: +44 (0)1274 232 323 Fax: +44 (0)1274 305 340 Email: j.m.bujra@bradford.ac.uk Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK |  |
| Carolyn Baylies Department of Sociology and Social Policy University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Tel: +44 (0)113 233 4418 Fax: +44 (0)113 233 4415 Email: c.l.baylies@leeds.ac.uk Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK |  |
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