Abstract #49  -  Patriarchy, poverty and power: Agency and sexuality amongst teenage girls in the Eastern Cape and implications for prevention
Authors:   Presenting Author:   Prof Rachel Jewkes - Medical Research Council
Additional Authors:  Prof Robert Morrell,
Aim: Background: Feminist discourse around HIV prevention interventions commonly situates young women as powerless victims of philandering, violent and manipulative men and positions empowerment of women as essential for changing their position in the epidemic. Many strategies for working with women have been developed and implemented, a common feature of these has often been a lack of emphasis on intervention with heterosexual men. Yet some interventions that seek to be empowering, such as Stepping Stones, seem to have a more classical impact on sexual behaviour of men than of women. This paper discusses young rural femininities and explores agency and sexuality, reflecting on implications for HIV prevention.
Method / Issue: Methods: 27 individual taped in-depth interviews and many hours of participant observation, were conducted with 16 African women aged 17-21 years living in the Eastern Cape Province, around the town of Mthatha. This area has amongst the highest levels of unemployment and poverty in South Africa and a high prevalence of HIV.
Results / Comments: Findings: Relationships were conducted within an overarching narrative of patriarchy and within the socio-economic context of severe poverty of the Eastern Cape. For the most part, there was no evidence that women challenged patriarchy, rather they saw male control of them as reflective of a natural order. In contrast to public health discourse, having multiple partners was presented as ‘how we do relationships’. Relationships were “fun”, and flirting with men and being picked up was a (dangerous and risky) game. Some of the urban women presented an empowered femininity, one where they tried to navigate successfully the pitfalls of teenage sexuality- pregnancy, HIV, heart-break, school completion. Many did not manage this successfully and the discourse of being ‘happy go lucky’ and generally in control was used to remove some of the space for expressing and responding to emotional vulnerability. There was considerable evidence of young women gaining protection from stronger male figures in their lives, such as engaged fathers, where they had these.
Discussion: Conclusions: These femininities were sharply influenced by the masculinities prevalent in their social environment. Changing and empowering men to build more gender equitable masculinities, and strengthening the engagement of fathers in South African families is critical for enabling the empowerment of women. These interventions need to be implemented alongside work more directly with young women.
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