HIVAIDS and gendered prevention education in Ontario

Abstract

Young women in Canada are increasingly at risk for contracting HIV through heterosexual transmission, which represents the most common mode of HIV transmission worldwide. In Canada, women now comprise a quarter of all HIV prevalent people, and the number of young women aged 15-29 who have tested positive for HIV has increased dramatically despite over twenty years of health and education programming Women's gendered vulnerabilities are not well understood in the Canadian context, nor is women's risk (especially that of young women engaging in supposedly safer 'hetero'-sexual practices). The purpose of this study is to analyse how young Canadian women's prevention needs are represented in HIV/AIDS discourse and to determine whether and how those needs are being met in the current public health and formal educational contexts. This has been accomplished through a feminist content analysis of the relevant epidemiological, social, legal, educational and operational documents related to HIV prevention. This analysis addresses young women's representation in HIV/AIDS discourse; normative understandings of risk (primarily risk behaviours and categories in light of prevalence and incidence rates); and the inclusion of a gendered perspective in current Canadian policies, guidelines and public health prevention and formal education programs. The results show that all of these elements are lacking in current HIV prevention research, policies and programs. The intent of the study is to reflect this information back to researchers and educators, highlighting absences and silences in the representations of women in HIV/AIDS discourse and prevention efforts; it is also meant to provide a baseline understanding from which to undertake future research. This ongoing work largely consists of the development of evidence-based, gendered HIV prevention interventions in schools and communities. It also includes further analysis of issues relating to women's representation in HIV/AIDS discourse, particularly from a queer perspective; Foucault's exploration of power and knowledge, of the pedagogization of children's sex and the hysterization of women's bodies, and Butler's exploration of compulsory heterosexuality and the performativity of gender are presented as important ideas for informing analyses of young women's representation in the HIV epidemic. Hopefully this study serves to highlight young women's increasing vulnerability to HIV, clarify some of the issues impacting on that vulnerability, and inform the future development of effective, gendered prevention interventions.