"Take Your Mat and Go!": Rural Malawian Women's Strategies in the HIV/AIDS Era

Enid Schatz, University of the Witwatersrand

The images of women currently dominating the UNAIDS literature paint a picture of vulnerable women who need considerable outside help to enhance their status, power, and negotiation skills. Using depth interviews from rural Malawi, I examine the extent to which women themselves express having power within their households, specifically perceptions of their ability to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Interviews with their spouses expound on men’s acknowledgement of their wives’ autonomy in this area. According to both spouses’ narratives, women often advocate for themselves relating to HIV/AIDS protection. The strategies and timing they use, however, are not always consistent or fruitful. Although women talk to their husbands about the “dangerous disease out there,” respondents articulated that the suggestion of condom use with a spouse shows a lack of trust. An atmosphere of distrust is described as worse than simply ending the marriage, a strategy to which some women may be resorting.