The ABC Approach and the Feminization of HIV/AIDS in the Sub-Saharan Africa

Women, the dominant subjects of AIDS discourses, are placed at risk by common systems of oppression such as gender, race, class, and social and spatial location. Through the health campaigns which are disseminated and reproduced through television, radio, newspapers, and more recently the internet, women are uniquely constructed by privileged “experts” from the West as consumable subjects. In the case of women in Sub- Sahara Africa, we found that health campaigns which feminize AIDS are rooted in largely hegemonic cultural images which portray women as vulnerable subjects under siege. Through our analysis, we problematize the ABC health campaign and its appropriateness for women in Sub-Saharan Africa.