Gender Relations, HIV/AIDS Prevention, and Empowerment Approaches: Critical Questions and Paradigmatic Issues

Issues: The impact of gender inequities on women's risk of violence and HIV/AIDS is widely recognized. During the past decade, an array of women's empowerment-based violence and HIV/AIDS prevention strategies have been developed and tested. In this presentation, we review the successes and limitations of these approaches, and highlight critical questions and paradigmatic issues to be considered by researchers and program planners as they seek to extend these efforts. Description: We begin by briefly describing the spectrum of women's empowerment-based violence and HIV prevention strategies, including interventions that promote female-initiated prevention technologies, enhance women's individual and collective access to information, skills and decision-making opportunities, and facilitate the emergence of gender equitable relationships and norms. Next, we outline constraints on the effectiveness of these approaches such as the role of dyadic/relationship factors and the potential for male backlash. We also highlight critical questions for future research, including the need to better understand the circumstances in which increases in women's access to and control over economic resources lead to reductions in violence and HIV. Lessons Learned: The majority of empowerment-based efforts have treated gender as synonymous with women and focused on redressing women's heightened vulnerability to violence and HIV/AIDS. However, researchers and program planners may need to make a paradigmatic shift towards a focus on gendered vulnerability to violence and HIV/AIDS. Recommendations: A gendered vulnerability approach will entail a move away from simplistic dichotomies such as victims/perpetrators, innocence/guilt, and domination/subjugation; focus on relationships and dyads; and explore the meaning of gender equity.