scholarly journals ‘Why don’t you just use a condom?’: Understanding the motivational tensions in the minds of South African women

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Mash ◽  
Bob Mash ◽  
Pierre De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Condom Use ◽  
South African ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
African Women ◽  
Consistent Condom ◽  
Technical Solution ◽  
Condom Usage ◽  
South African Women ◽  
The Mind

Background: HIV/AIDS makes the largest contribution to the burden of disease in South Africa and consistent condom use is considered a key component of HIV-prevention efforts. Health workers see condoms as a straightforward technical solution to prevent transmission of the disease and are often frustrated when their simple advice is not followed.Objectives: To better understand the complexity of the decision that women must make when they are asked to negotiate condom use with their partner.Method: A literature review.Results: A key theme that emerged included unequal power in sexual decision making, with men dominating and women being disempowered. Women may want to please their partner, who might believe that condoms will reduce sexual pleasure. The use of condoms was associated with a perceived lack of ‘real’ love, intimacy and trust. Other factors included the fear of losing one’s reputation, being seen as ‘loose’ and of violence or rejection by one’s partner. For many women, condom usage was forbidden by their religious beliefs. The article presents a conceptual framework to make sense of the motivational dilemma in the mind of a woman who is asked to use a condom.Conclusion: Understanding this ambivalence, respecting it and helping women to resolve it may be more helpful than simply telling women to use a condom. A prevention worker who fails to recognise this dilemma and instructs women to ‘simply’ use a condom, may well encounter resistance.

scholarly journals NEW MYTHS, NEW SCRIPTS: REVISIONIST MYTHOPOESIS IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN’S POETRY

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-66
Author(s):  
Deirdre Byrne
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Gender Relations ◽  
The Body ◽  
African Women ◽  
Women Poets ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
American Women ◽  
South African Women ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Considerable theoretical and critical work has been done on the way British and American women poets re-vision (Rich 1976) male-centred myth. Some South African women poets have also used similar strategies. My article identifies a gap in the academy’s reading of a significant, but somewhat neglected, body of poetry and begins to address this lack of scholarship. I argue that South African women poets use their art to re-vision some of the central constructs of patriarchal mythology, including the association of women with the body and the irrational, and men with the mind and logic. These poems function on two levels: They demonstrate that the constructs they subvert are artificial; and they create new and empowering narratives for women in order to contribute to the reimagining of gender relations.

scholarly journals Condom Use, Multiple Rounds of Sex, and Alcohol Use Among South African Women Who Use Alcohol and Other Drugs

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (12) ◽  
pp. 786-790
Author(s):  
William A. Zule ◽  
Ilene S. Speizer ◽  
Felicia A. Browne ◽  
Brittni N. Howard ◽  
Wendee M. Wechsberg
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Condom Use ◽  
South African ◽  
African Women ◽  
South African Women ◽  
Alcohol And Other Drugs

scholarly journals Self-determination and gender–power relations as predictors of condom use self-efficacy among South African women

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 205510291559867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feziwe Mpondo ◽  
Robert AC Ruiter ◽  
Bart van den Borne ◽  
Priscilla S Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Condom Use ◽  
South African ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
African Women ◽  
Gender Power ◽  
And Gender ◽  
South African Women

scholarly journals ‘No condom, no sex’: Easy to say, but not possible for all South African women

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna E. Maree
Keyword(s):  
Cervical Cancer ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Condom Use ◽  
South African ◽  
African Women ◽  
Sex Partners ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Data Saturation ◽  
South African Women ◽  
Self Protection

Cervical cancer is the most common cancer in South African women. The human papillomavirus(HPV) is the biggest risk factor for developing this cancer. However, condom use protects against HPV transmission. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether Black women living in Tshwane, South Africa, were able to protect themselves against cervical cancer by insisting on condom use. The study was exploratory, qualitative and contextual, and a convenience snowball sampling method was used. The sample size was determined through data saturation (n = 20). Selfreported data were gathered by means of interviews, and analysed using Tesch’s approach. Four themes emerged, (1) knowledge of cervical cancer, (2) sexual behaviour, (3) social problems and (4) emotions. The study provided evidence that women were not able to protect themselves from cervical cancer by insisting on condom use. Women lacked knowledge of cervical cancer and did not associate condom use with self-protection against this disease. Most of their sex partners refused to use condoms. Poverty, physical abuse, helplessness and fear prevented women from insisting on the use of condoms. Primary prevention strategies should focus on empowering women to protect themselves from cervical cancer and not leave this important issue to someone who might refuse it.OpsommingServikskarsinoom is die mees algemene kanker in Suid-Afrikaanse vroue. Die menslike papiloom virus (MPV) is die grootse oorsaak van hierdie kanker. Oordraging van die virus kan egter met kondoomgebruik voorkom word. Die doel van die studie was om te bepaal of Swart vroue woonagtig in Tshwane, Suid-Afrika, hulself teen die virus kan beskerm deur op kondoomgebruik aan te dring.Die studie was eksploratief, kwalitatief en kontekstueel en ’n gerieflikheids sneeubal metode het die steekproef gerig. Die steekproefgrootte is deur dataversadiging bepaal (n = 20). Data is ingesamel deur middel van onderhoude en die data is met behulp van Tesch se metode geanaliseer. Vier temas is geïdentifiseer, (1) kennis van servikskarsinoom, (2) seksuele gedrag, (3) sosiale probleme en (4)emosies. Die studie het bevind dat vroue hulle nie self teen servikskarsinoom kan beskerm deur op kondome aan te dring nie. Kennis van die siekte was so gebrekkig dat vroue nie kondoomgebruik met servikskarsinoom vereenselwig het nie. Die meeste van hul seksmaats het geweier om kondome te gebruik. Armmoede, fisiese geweld, hulpeloosheid en vrees het vroue weerhou om op die gebruik van kondome aan te dring. Primêre voorkomingstrategië behoort op selfbemagtiging van vroue te konsentreer. Dit sal voorkom dat vroue van mans, wat hulle die reg kan weier, afhanklik is vir beskerming teen servikskarsinoom.

THE SINS OF THE FATHER: GENDER- BASED VIOLENCE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Snodgrass
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Black Women ◽  
South African ◽  
African Women ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
South African Women

This article explores the complexities of gender-based violence in post-apartheid South Africa and interrogates the socio-political issues at the intersection of class, ‘race’ and gender, which impact South African women. Gender equality is up against a powerful enemy in societies with strong patriarchal traditions such as South Africa, where women of all ‘races’ and cultures have been oppressed, exploited and kept in positions of subservience for generations. In South Africa, where sexism and racism intersect, black women as a group have suffered the major brunt of this discrimination and are at the receiving end of extreme violence. South Africa’s gender-based violence is fuelled historically by the ideologies of apartheid (racism) and patriarchy (sexism), which are symbiotically premised on systemic humiliation that devalues and debases whole groups of people and renders them inferior. It is further argued that the current neo-patriarchal backlash in South Africa foments and sustains the subjugation of women and casts them as both victims and perpetuators of pervasive patriarchal values.

Longitudinal telomere length profile does not reflect HIV and childhood trauma impacts on cognitive function in South African women

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Samantha Womersley ◽  
Georgina Spies ◽  
Gerard Tromp ◽  
Soraya Seedat ◽  
Sian Megan Joanna Hemmings
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Telomere Length ◽  
South African ◽  
Childhood Trauma ◽  
African Women ◽  
South African Women
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