Reading generalised HIV epidemics as a woman

Abstract

"In this paper, I want to read generalised epidemics as a woman might (Cranny- Francis et al. 2003:120) and to rework the discourse on such epidemics to articulate and include a specifically feminine voice. In using the phrase “reading as a woman”, my aim is not to develop a singular different voice, a universalised, essentialised feminine persona. Rather, it is to explore, in the words of Lorraine Code (1995:155), “whose voices have been audible, and whose muffled, in the articulations of prevailing theories; of showing whose experiences count, and how epistemic authority is established and withheld”. I argue the need for continuity between the way these epidemics are read and women’s multiple voices, experiences and subject positions. The answer to Catherine Campbell’s question lies at least in part, I contend, in the absence of these women’s readings, and in the absence of their incorporation into the dominant discourse. It also lies in part in the absence in the response to these epidemics of the programmatic insights to which a woman’s reading gives rise ..." - page 2 Show more