1. You make a good point about 'resources' ... however, I maintain that with sufficient pressure, even the most patient societies revolt. Women are people, and people *need* liberties. Abuse can only go so far, even when organised and traditional.
2. I don't think AIDS is necessarily so different, especially when it intersects with traditional social values. It would be nice to treat AIDS purely as the medical plague that it is, but that hasn't been the case in the First World, or the Third. 'AIDS widows' specifically refer to those infected women (infected by husbands) who outlive their AIDS-dead husbands, who may have AIDS-infected children, and due to social ties, may be married by the husband's brother. A practice fairly common in SE Africa, I've read. In the long run, the orphans and aged are badly impacted by AIDS, but in the short-run, a society's highest earners are killed, and traditional social values may perpetuate the infection. By the bye, as an infection fulcrum, the 'AIDS Widow' model applies to both sexes - and again traditional social values may perpetuate this problem. I brought this up, because there is all too often a failure by government to intercept infected survivours, and a failure by those traditional social orders to evolve to the new challenge sufficiently.
For example, with good information, women as these can (and have in some places) gather together to demand their own independent support - with primary interest in the children.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiming
Re: FYI, in practice now...
Date: November 17th, 2003 06:45 am (UTC)From:2. I don't think AIDS is necessarily so different, especially when it intersects with traditional social values. It would be nice to treat AIDS purely as the medical plague that it is, but that hasn't been the case in the First World, or the Third. 'AIDS widows' specifically refer to those infected women (infected by husbands) who outlive their AIDS-dead husbands, who may have AIDS-infected children, and due to social ties, may be married by the husband's brother. A practice fairly common in SE Africa, I've read. In the long run, the orphans and aged are badly impacted by AIDS, but in the short-run, a society's highest earners are killed, and traditional social values may perpetuate the infection. By the bye, as an infection fulcrum, the 'AIDS Widow' model applies to both sexes - and again traditional social values may perpetuate this problem. I brought this up, because there is all too often a failure by government to intercept infected survivours, and a failure by those traditional social orders to evolve to the new challenge sufficiently.
For example, with good information, women as these can (and have in some places) gather together to demand their own independent support - with primary interest in the children.