3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item Gender and HIV in Limpopo Province(2009-11-24T11:43:12Z) Ali, Mohammed AbdoshOBJECTIVE: To explore gender-related differentials of HIV prevalence in Limpopo Province, South Africa. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study, data collected by the Rural AIDS and Development Action Research (RADAR) Program for the purpose of a controlled community trial in Limpopo Province. The study population consisted of 798 young men and 992 young women aged 14 to 25 years old. Subjects were tested for the presence of HIV antibodies and answered structured questionnaires. Logistic regression was used to examine risk factors related to gender differentials of HIV prevalence. RESULTS: The prevalence of HIV infection was 5.8% in men and 12.4% in women. Women often had older partners, while men had much younger partners or partners of a similar age. Men with primary education and reporting as students showed a reduced risk of HIV infection whereas unemployed women showed an increased risk of HIV infection. Sexual debut at the age of ≤ 16 was associated with increased risk of HIV infection among both sexes. A significantly higher HIV prevalence was found in women with more than four lifetime sexual partners, young women having an age difference of three to 9.9 years from their sexual partners, women having non-spousal sexual partners of 22 to 26 years of age, and women reporting no regular financial support. Frequency of sex of six to 20 times was a marker of increased risk of HIV among men. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of HIV infection was higher in young women than in men. The increased risk of HIV infection in women might be explained by social and behavioural factors that lead young women to select older partners, and is perhaps also a result of the biological susceptibility of women to HIV infection.Item Romance, love and gender in times of crisis: HIV/AIDS in Kenyan popular fiction(2006-03-20) Muriungi, AgnesThe emergence of HIV/AIDS has changed how society perceives and deals with issues of sex, sexuality, and gender. The writers studied in this thesis raise important questions pertaining to HIV/AIDS and gender, love, romance, sex and sexuality in present day Kenya. Their writing demonstrates that HIV/AIDS has changed the ways in which people understand these issues. This thesis sought to explore, through an analysis of fiction, how human social behaviour has been affected by a pandemic disease. The changes in sexual and gender relationships that are reflected in this literature points at “emergent cultures of sexuality”. For instance, the literature clearly shows that both men and women in contemporary Kenya are confronted by an urgent need to change their sexual behaviour whether in monogamous or polygamous relationships, hence a change in the power matrix between men and women. Practices to do with pleasure seeking and the satisfaction of desire, male domination of gender relationships, notions of masculinity among other social and cultural practices and beliefs are affected in extreme ways. In some cases, these practices and beliefs are undermined and subverted whilst in other cases they are reinforced. What these social and sexual dynamics suggest is that human society is being revolutionized by the HIV/AIDS phenomenon. Therefore, this study looks at how popular discourses about sexuality, romance and gender have been (re)appropriated and (re)articulated by popular literature in Kenya within the context of HIV/AIDS. The thesis examines how discourses on romance are employed to re-imagine social and sexual behaviour as a means to control and contain the spread of HIV/AIDS. My analysis demonstrates that popular fiction is capable of representing the hidden realities of sex, sexuality, romance and gender that individuals face daily in a way that other forms of expression and media cannot. The examples of HIV/AIDS fiction examined here give readers a better understanding of the effects of the disease on society through the various stories that different characters in the novels tell. These stories also play an important role in the creation of urgently needed and socially relevant meaning with regard to HIV/AIDS. The popular text, in the context of HIV/AIDS, makes an important contribution to cultural production because it comments on and more importantly, offers possibilities of re-imagining and re-creating new forms and practices of social and sexual behaviour in present-day Kenyan society.