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Showing posts with the label African Americans and HIV/AIDS

. . . and let there be Resistance!

This week's readings quite explicitly focused on the theme of resistance. At some point in my life I knew of only one meaning of resistance - armed or violent opposition. And now critical studies have given me more knowledge was understanding of what else can be constructed as resistance. We see resistance in Mallory & Stern's (2008) article Awakening as a Change Process Among Women at Risk for HIV Who Engage in Survival Sex . The authors highlight that one out of every five AIDS patients is a woman, and HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American women. More importantly, such AIDS prevalence seems to be more common among women who are marginalized by poverty drug abuse, and sex trade. The authors implicitly argues how addressing the root causes of such behavior among this population acts as resistance towards further victimization of these women. We then read about the resistive acts of the low income African American young females in Martyn & Hatchin