LAPA’s seminar format encourages attendees to familiarize themselves with the paper in advance. The commentator opens the session by summarizing the main themes in the paper and presenting some topics for discussion.
Professor Aziz writes: "Today, AIDS is thought of as a disease that impacts women in large numbers. How did a virus once problematically associated with gay men from the global north come to be 'feminized' and associated with women from the global south? My paper argues that feminist advocates fundamentally altered the legal and scientific response to the epidemic by changing conceptions of who was at risk of contracting HIV. Despite what experts said about women’s negligible risk, feminist activists knew that women were contracting and dying of HIV. Beginning in the late 1980s, a new branch of the feminist women’s health movement (FWHM) mobilized in response. This movement borrowed tactics from successful reproductive rights and AIDS organizing to draw attention to a growing epidemic among women. They demanded recognition in multiple registers: on the streets, in courthouses, and in U.S. administrative agencies, at the U.S. State Department, and in international human rights law. They were successful. Women were deemed at risk of contracting HIV. This feminist victory fundamentally changed the legal response to the epidemic -- driving resources and attention towards a previously hidden epidemic. And, perhaps most remarkably, women came to be seen as more biologically vulnerable to HIV than men. This project both celebrates and critically interrogates the transformative role of feminists in the AIDS response."
More information: Contact Judi Rivkin, lapaeven@princeton.edu