Gender, violence and HIV: women's survival in the streets.
In this article I propose that gender inequality promotes--directly or indirectly--vulnerability to HIV as a consequence of a multidimensional violence (structural, symbolic and physical) experienced by injection drug using (IDU) women in The Mission District (San Francisco). Given the female subordinated position stipulated by the street ideology, I analyze how drug dependence afforded by precarious strategies of subsistence places IDU women under multiple dangers and threats. In this setting, unequal gender relations are part of a complex system of transactions in the street economy and a way to reduce or increase the everyday violence. Facing multiple dangers and risks, some women adopt a subordinated position, some try to negotiate the conditions of the exchanges and the others resist the exploitation. Finally, everyday violence under conditions of gender inequality and scarcity of resources imposes a logic defined by the challenge of survival under the threat of immediate dangers, which transform HIV into a secondary risk.
Epele
María Esther
ME
Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000635:transmission; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011209:Power, Psychological; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012495:San Francisco / Q000453:epidemiology; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013534:Survival; D014754:Violence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016387:Women's Health