Patel, Anokhi : Women, Poverty, and AIDS

        The purpose of the blog post is that there is a lack of AIDS awareness in underdeveloped countries like Africa. A reason for this being the case is because of the high rate of poverty found in many countries. Therefore, due to this, the voices of the women, struggling with AIDS are not being heard, as the author argues in the article, "they've been robbed of their voices long before HIV appeared to further complicate their lives" (Farmer).

        There has been controversy regarding whether AIDS treatment should be offered in Africa, for that matter. In fact, there have been many stereotypes falsely accusing African people as following unhygienic practices, causing the sudden outbreak of this epidemic in Africa. Yet, the true reason for these stereotypes is to use them as an excuse for funding AIDS treatment in Africa as the government considers it poor, and the country already faces a lot of racial, political, and gender issues. Therefore, blaming African women with AIDS for being unhygienic, is almost considered acceptable, meaning refusing treatment for these women is also acceptable, as there are many women in other countries dealing with AIDS as well, who are of better economic standing where awareness of AIDS is already being recognized.

        Additionally, the HIV infection is already a big problem in many other countries, affecting women of all groups, as "The World Health Organization has predicted, during the course of the 365 days of the year 2000, between six and eight million women will be infected with HIV" (Farmer). Due to this, there isn't much awareness of AIDS reform in Africa, as the US rather focus on impacting already developed countries who can afford treatment for AIDS. One such example is Brazil.

      The author's perspective expands to the world as a whole because currently not many are aware of the AIDS epidemic in Africa and other third world countries. Yet, there are many reforms that have taken place to stress this problem, such as the video in class showed the AIDS activist group in New York. Together, the women in South Africa and this group in New York work to create awareness of the HIV infection and in hopes to grant treatment of the disease in Africa, like so in Brazil.

The question I'd like to further discuss is whether the sexuality, and lifestyle of African women, affect the lack of attention they've been recieving regarding the AIDS problem in their country?