Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Time to Call the Bluff: (De)-constructing ‘Women's Vulnerability’, HIV and Sexual Health

  • Dialogue
  • Published:
Development Aims and scope

Abstract

Jerker Edström argues that common interpretations of vulnerability in gender and development discourse, policy and practice tend to reinforce essentialisms about men and women. These interpretations compromise our ability to think clearly about the structural influences on HIV and sexual health, as well as its relations to gender inequity and women's empowerment. He examines some predominant constructions of women in the AIDS response, based on the notion of vulnerability, and suggests how unhelpful the notion of vulnerability is to political project of women's empowerment in redressing inequality and injustice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. A national study of sexually experienced youth aged 15–24 in South Africa found that 5.5 percent of males and 5.3 percent of females had ever had anal sex (Lane et al., 2006).

References

  • Bedford, Kate (2007) ‘The Imperative of Male Inclusion: How institutional context influences World Bank gender policy’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 9 (3): 289–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bloom, Gerald, Jerker Edström, Melissa Leach, Henry Lucas, Hayley MacGregor, Hilary Standing and Linda Waldman (2007) ‘Health in a Dynamic World’, STEPS Working Paper 5, Brighton: STEPS Centre.

  • Clark, Shelley (2004) ‘Early Marriage and HIV Risks in Sub Saharan Africa’, Studies in Family Planning 35 (3): 149–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Des (1993) ‘The Economic Impact of the HIV Epidemic’, HIV and Development Programme, Issues papers 2, New York: UNDP.

  • de Walque, Damien (2006) ‘Discordant Couples: HIV infection among couples in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania’, (June 1, 2006), World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3956 http://ssrn.com/abstract=923263, accessed 8 March 2010.

  • Doezema, Jo (1998) ‘Forced to Choose: Beyond the voluntary v. forced prostitution dichotomy’, in Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema (eds.) Global Sex Workers, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edström, Jerker (2007) ‘Rethinking ‘Vulnerability’ and Social Protection for Children Affected by AIDS’, IDS Bulletin 38 (3): 101–105 Brighton: IDS.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edström, Jerker (2010) ‘Constructing AIDS: Contesting perspectives on an evolving epidemic’, in Sarah Dry and Melissa Leach (eds.) Epidemics: Narratives, politics and pathways of disease and response, London: Earthscan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edström, Jerker and Nichola Khan (2009) ‘Perspectives on Intergenerational Vulnerability for Adolescents Affected by HIV: An argument for voice and visibility’, IDS Bulletin 40: 1 Brighton: IDS.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) ‘Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/pdf/BDPfA%20E.pdf, accessed 8 March 2010.

  • Glynn, Judith R., Michel Caraël, Bertran Auvert, Maina Kahindo, Jane Chege, R. Musonda, Frederick Kaona and Anne Buvé (2001) ‘Why Do Young Women Have a Much Higher Prevalence of HIV Than Young Men? A study in Kisumu, Kenya and Ndola, Zambia’, AIDS 15 (Suppl 4): S51–S60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenall, Matthew (2007) ‘Review of the Evidence Base for an ‘Evidence-Based’ Policy on HIV Programming with Sex Workers’, August 2007 http://www.plri.org/resource/review-evidence-base-%E2%80%9Cevidence-based%E2%80%9D-policy-hiv-programming-sex-workers, accessed 8 March 2010.

  • Gysels, Marjolein, Robert Pool and Betty Nnalusiba (2002) ‘Women Who Sell Sex in a Ugandan Trading Town: Life histories, survival strategies and risk’, Social Science & Medicine 54 (2): 179–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallman, Kelly (2008) ‘Researching the Determinants of Vulnerability to HIV among Adolescents’, IDS Bulletin 39: 5 Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunter, Mark (2002) ‘The Materiality of Everyday Sex: Thinking beyond ‘prostitution’, African Studies 61.1: 99–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hunter, Mark (2007) ‘The Changing Political Economy of Sex in South Africa: The significance of unemployment and inequalities to the scale of the AIDS pandemic’, Social Science and Medicine 64: 689–700.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jewkes, Rachel and Naeema Abrahams (2002) ‘The Epidemiology of Rape and Sexual Coercion in South Africa: An overview’, Social Science and Medicine 55 (7): 1231–1244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karim, Salim S. and Gita Ramjee (1998) ‘Anal Sex and HIV Transmission in Women’, American Journal of Public Health 88 (8): 1265–1266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krieger, Nancy (2008) ‘Proximal, Distal and the Politics of Causation: What's level got to do with it?’ American Journal of Public Health 98 (2): 221–230.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lane, Tim, Audrey Pettifor, Sophie Pascoe, Agnes Fiamma and Helen Rees (2006) ‘Heterosexual Anal Intercourse Increases Risk of HIV Infection Among Young South African Men’, AIDS 20 (1): 123–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mascolini, Mark (2007) ‘African Study Finds More HIV in Women in Discordant Couples’, International AIDS Society 22 June.

  • Mastro, Timothy D. and Isabelle de Vincenzi (1996) ‘Probabilities of Sexual HIV-1 Transmission’, AIDS 10 (Suppl A): S75–S82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen, Vinh-Kim (2002) ‘Antiretroviral Globalism, Biopolitics, and Therapeutic Citizenship’, in Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier (eds.) Global Assemblages: Technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems, Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Padian, Nancy, Linda Marquis, Donald P. Francis, Robert E. Anderson, George W. Rutherford, Paul M. O’Malley and Warren Winkelstein Jr (1987) ‘Male-to-Female Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus’, Journal of the American Medical Association 258 (6): 788–790.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reid, Elizabeth (1993) ‘The HIV Epidemic and Development: The unfolding of the epidemic’, HIV and Development Programme. Issues papers 1, New York: UNDP.

  • Robertson, Claire C. (1997) Trouble Showed the Way: Women, men, and trade in the Nairobi Area, 1890–1990, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwandt, Michael, Chester Morris, Alan Ferguson, Elisabeth Ngugi and Stephen Moses (2006) ‘Anal and Dry Sex in Commercial Sex Work, and Relation to Risk for Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV in Meru, Kenya’, Sexually Transmitted Infections 82: 392–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UN (1994) Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September 1994 http://www.un.org/popin/icpd/conference/offeng/poa.html, accessed 8 March 2010.

  • UN (2001) ‘Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS’ at the United Nations’, 27 June 2001, United Nations General Assembly Twenty-sixth Special Session Doc: A/s-26/L.2 http://www.un.org/ga/aids/docs/aress262.pdf, accessed 8 March 2010.

  • UNAIDS (2008) ‘23rd Meeting of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, 15–17 December 2008: Gender-sensitivity of AIDS responses’, UNAIDS/PCB(23)/08.32, Geneva http://data.unaids.org/pub/InformationNote/2008/20081015_pcb_gender_progress_update_final_en.pdf, accessed 10 March 2008.

  • Varghese, Beena, Julie E. Maher, Thomas A. Peterman, Bernard M. Branson and Richard W. Steketee (2002) ‘Reducing the Risk of Sexual HIV Transmission: Quantifying the per-act risk for HIV on the basis of choice of partner, sex act, and condom use’, Sexually Transmitted Diseases 29 (1): 38–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, Luise (1990) The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Jerker Edström
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Suggests that common interpretations of vulnerability compromise our ability to think clearly about the structural influences on HIV and sexual health

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Edström, J. Time to Call the Bluff: (De)-constructing ‘Women's Vulnerability’, HIV and Sexual Health. Development 53, 215–221 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2010.24

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2010.24

Keywords

Search

Navigation