Statistics about the devastating impact of the HIV virus on the African continent, where more than 23.5 million people are infected (Poku, 2001), are widely known, and are bandied about in both social and academic speak. Within mainstream biomedicine (biomedicine dominates research and regulation of the epidemic, and permeates popular understanding), the spread of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa remains relatively unproblematised, with biological and behavioural models of aetiology remaining uncontested (Crewe, 1997). However, within a wide range of disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, psychology and political science, waves of critical consciousness (postmodernism, social constructionism, post-structuralism, Marxism and feminism) are actively wearing down antiquated modes of thought that fail to take into account social constructions of the disease, and its intersection with constructions of race, gender and class, and are working to unveil the institutions and ideologies (e.g. patriarchy, capitalism, democracy) that these social discourses serve (Crewe, 1997; Durrheim, 1997; Foster, 1999; Peterson & Benishek, 2001). Of notable interest are feminist critical theorists who unpack cultural notions of disease, and seek to understand their particular impact on women’s illness experiences (Peterson & Benishek, 2001). For women, the social construction of HIV/AIDS cannot be torn apart from the oppression and regulation of women under patriarchy, and from gendered constructions of masculinity and femininity. Furthermore, feminist theorists pay special attention to the articulation between class, race and gender; black women, especially those living in Africa under conditions of incessant poverty, carry a vast burden and, when it comes to HIV/AIDS, are particularly vulnerable to projections of risk, where they are seen as ‘carriers’ of the disease, and are feared as dangerous (Fleishman, 1995; Joffe, 1999; Strebel, 1995)
