Institute for Gender Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
J Int AIDS Soc. 2013 Jul 8;16(1):18452. doi: 10.7448/IAS.16.1.18452.
The female condom is the only evidence-based AIDS prevention technology that has been designed for the female body; yet, most women do not have access to it. This is remarkable since women constitute the majority of all HIV-positive people living in sub-Saharan Africa, and gender inequality is seen as a driving force of the AIDS epidemic. In this study, we analyze how major actors in the AIDS prevention field frame the AIDS problem, in particular the female condom in comparison to other prevention technologies, in their discourse and policy formulations. Our aim is to gain insight into the discursive power mechanisms that underlie the thinking about AIDS prevention and women's sexual agency.
We analyze the AIDS policies of 16 agencies that constitute the most influential actors in the global response to AIDS. Our study unravels the discursive power of these global AIDS policy actors, when promoting and making choices between AIDS prevention technologies. We conducted both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of how the global AIDS epidemic is being addressed by them, in framing the AIDS problem, labelling of different categories of people for targeting AIDS prevention programmes and in gender marking of AIDS prevention technologies.
We found that global AIDS policy actors frame the AIDS problem predominantly in the context of gender and reproductive health, rather than that of sexuality and sexual rights. Men's sexual agency is treated differently from women's sexual agency. An example of such differentiation and of gender marking is shown by contrasting the framing and labelling of male circumcision as an intervention aimed at the prevention of HIV with that of the female condom.
The gender-stereotyped global AIDS policy discourse negates women's agency in sexuality and their sexual rights. This could be an important factor in limiting the scale-up of female condom programmes and hampering universal access to female condoms.
女用避孕套是唯一专为女性身体设计的基于证据的艾滋病预防技术；然而，大多数女性无法获得它。这很了不起，因为在撒哈拉以南非洲地区，感染艾滋病毒的人中，女性占大多数，而性别不平等被视为艾滋病流行的驱动力。在这项研究中，我们分析了艾滋病预防领域的主要行为者如何在他们的话语和政策制定中构建艾滋病问题，特别是与其他预防技术相比的女用避孕套。我们的目的是深入了解构成艾滋病预防和女性性代理思维基础的话语权力机制。
我们分析了构成全球艾滋病应对最具影响力行为者的 16 个机构的艾滋病政策。我们的研究揭示了这些全球艾滋病政策行为者在推广和选择艾滋病预防技术时的话语权力。我们对他们通过构建艾滋病问题、针对艾滋病预防方案对不同类别人群进行标记以及对艾滋病预防技术进行性别标记来解决全球艾滋病流行的情况进行了定量和定性分析。
我们发现，全球艾滋病政策行为者主要在性别和生殖健康背景下构建艾滋病问题，而不是在性行为和性权利背景下构建艾滋病问题。男性的性代理与女性的性代理不同。这种分化和性别标记的一个例子是，将男性割礼作为预防 HIV 的干预措施进行框架和标记，与女用避孕套的框架和标记形成对比。
性别刻板的全球艾滋病政策话语否定了女性在性行为中的代理权和性权利。这可能是限制女用避孕套方案扩大规模和阻碍普遍获得女用避孕套的一个重要因素。
