It has been several months since we got to Memphis. And i am finally settling in – almost calling this home.
School has been the major change in my life. And with that has come the realization that women suffer the same things on the other side of the world. I honestly believed that the fact that America is a ‘developed’ nation would translate into improved lives for women. And in many ways it does. Yet the realities in many women’s lives are almost a mirror of the realities women face in Malawi – violence being the most prevalent and outstanding. And what an example of that comes from the Rhianna/Chris Brown debacle.
It doesn’t matter where you are on the social spectrum. As a woman your vulnerability to violence is always just beneath the surface.
And so now I am faced with the question of how to raise a son in a world where women are often commodities? Their bodies, thoughts, experiences are almost always touched by violence or the threat of violence. No more so than when you are at the intersection of various vulnerabilities – if you are from a minority, have a weak support system, are at the mercy of poverty, are ‘sexy,’ are ‘ugly,’ because of your religion, sexuality, education, background and even beliefs. It seems that all those titles that we hold as women are alternately strengths and weaknesses.
My focus has been the effect that HIV and AIDS has on women’s lives. The most prominent effect (for me) has been their heightened vulnerability to violence. And that being victims of violence heightens women’s vulnerability to HIV and AIDS. It is a vicious cycle.
I am hoping that my research and studies here in the first world will give me some of the answers that I need to develop my work in the third world. But what lessons are there really? When we are all at the mercy of the same forces?
forgive the rant, I can’t help but rail at the injustices that I see. Yet we must continue to seek out new and improved ways of uplifting women the world over.
love and HIV 
“It seems that all those titles that we hold as women are alternately strengths and weaknesses” –I find this so insightful, and this insight so rich. It underscores the catch 22 we find ourselves in often–always?–of having to be desirable in order to be valuable, and all the vulnerabilities that this leads to. Violence, of course, the physical violence that keeps coming whatever we do or don’t do, is the most visible effect. We know there are other, less visible effects–some of them arguably more destructive, for us and for the bonds we strive for.
Valentine (sorry that the reply is several years late!) I am often stymied by the obstacle that is presented by violence. How does one fight back – figuratively and perhaps even literally. There are also the related issues of race and socioeconomic status. Just a few days ago my husband dialled 911 when he heard screams coming from the house next door – it seemed the man was beating his wife. The operator asked if the couple was black or white. Why?! Asked my husband. ‘Well we need to know if we are dealing with the right kind of people.’ I still don’t know which level of violence was more hurtful – the man that beat his wife? or the 911 operator who needed to know the race of the victim to [perhaps] establish if she was a victim? What can we do about violence?