Simms: Women must take control of their bodies. - CARLINGTON WILMOT/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
Dr. Glenda Simms, gender expert and consultant:
TODAY HALF of the adults living with HIV/AIDS are women. This gender impact of the pandemic is seen in every region of the world. In the Caribbean region, generally, and in Jamaica, in particular, the typical face of (someone who is living with HIV) is that of young woman in her prime.
PATRIARCHAL INFLUENCE
I think passivity in the female is the biggest induced hype that has been perpetrated on women over time. Women are seen as passive (but) women are not passive. We are in a state of induced stupor, forgetting our womanhood because patriarchy designed it that women must take a back seat in bed and outside of the bed.
I think this has to be taken very seriously. If a woman is seen as passive and she passively expects that pleasuring herself has to come from the male, then she will always be (vulnerable to) HIV/AIDS and other transmitted diseases.
REVISIT WRONG ROOTS
Therefore, we have to take seriously the socialisation that women go through. We have to look seriously at the institutions that socialise us to be passive. The family (where) girls are still socialised to be nice and to do what they are told and then they get to school and the curriculum is so set up that we passively take in information and regurgitate it. Women have to take control of their own bodies.
The marriage ceremony and the world view of the traditional Christian denomination subscribe to the notion of passivity in women. We are told that there is fidelity in marriage. Many women enter this institution expecting their husbands to be faithful and to be trustworthy. They are also expected to be faithful. So we know that the home, the school, the churches, the faith-based institutions help us to be passive and to be so alienated from our bodies that we allow men to take control of our bodies and so when they want sex, we say 'yes'; (and) when we say 'no', they think we said 'yes'.
We have to understand that passivity of the women is an induced stupor. Women, when are you going to break out of your induced stupor and take control of your humanity and your womanhood and stand strong and say to the rest of the world, 'I will not continue to die from HIV/AIDS. I will be a woman, a phenomenal woman and true to my womanhood?'
