There is a perceptible link between women’s sexual helplessness in most developing countries and lack of control over their sex lives and reproductive behaviours. For a long time, African countries have continued to record very high rates of fertility and currently there are soaring rates of HIV/AIDS infection. Demographic literature indicates that global efforts have been directed towards fertility regulation by targeting female reproductive functions, but fertility rates have continued to be persistently high. Betsy Hartman in “A womb of one’s own” (1995) quoting the sentiments of Rene, a 29 year-old Peruvian woman, demonstrates that most women lack bargaining power over sex and reproduction:
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There isn’t much understanding in some marriages. My sister has six and another one has eight. And I said to one of them that she shouldn’t have any more. And she said, ‘what can I do? When my husband comes home drunk, he forces me to sleep with him and that is what happens to a lot of women. And if the women don’t do it, the men hit them, or treat them badly, or the men
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Opening a Can of Worms: A Debate on Female Sexuality in the Lecture Theatre
get jealous and think their wives must be with other men. And the women have to do whatever
they say. I think it is changing a little because the young women are more aware (1995:41).
Demographic trends in Kenya point implicitly to this kind of helplessness. Even with availability of contraceptive technology since 1967, women seem to have been very reluctant in accepting contraceptive use. One female student shared her experience: “My husband insists that I should not use contraceptives. He says that women who use these devices are promiscuous and can easily cheat on their spouses… ”. These experiences reflect a common plight: lack of ‘bedroom power’; lack of control by women over their own reproduction. This means that lack of reproductive rights and rights over one’s sexuality have deprived millions of women the right to decide if and when to have sex, a child, access to safe and voluntary birth control and abortion. Lack of ‘bedroom power’ means women cannot decide whether to have safe sex or not. Some students shared with me a new terminology condom-phobia. This is an apparent fear of men of condom use. Some men feel that using condoms with their spouses is less manly. “It’s like begging for what belongs to you”, “it’s like eating a sweet with the wrapper on, and you cannot get the true taste of sex with a condom”. Pitted against women’s control over their own reproduction are a number of obstacles, economic discrimination, subordination within the family, religious and cultural restrictions, the nature of health care systems and the distortion of family planning programmes. In this respect, gender-power inequalities in the negotiation of safe and satisfactory sex have to be acknowledged.
UNIFEM’s Biennial Report (2000) shows that HIV/AIDS is the fourth most common cause of death world-wide. Women experience a double burden as a result of the spread of HIV/AIDS; a burden of suffering and a burden of caring for those who are suffering. Though HIV/AIDS infection takes place through different ways, it is the coercive gender relations existing in most of Africa that predispose most women to infections. The gender dimensions of the pandemic, focusing on women’s lack of knowledge of or control over their own bodies and the terms on which sex is negotiated all relate to how the female sexuality is perceived. That means if more women have the power to ‘say no’ to unwanted and unsafe sex, the HIV infection rate would dramatically decline in Africa. Further there would be a notable decline in fertility rates. Thus more and more women would realize greater social and economic goals.