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The Vashti Paradigm Resistance as a Strategy for Combating HIV
... This is regardless of how ridiculous such demands might be or, worse still, how demeaning to the subject they could be. For example, Vashti was King Xerxes's wife, she was the Queen, and yet her fate was in the hands of not just the King but his advisers, the eunuchs, who were all males (Kebaneilwe 2011). That is, it is evident that by virtue of being female she was a powerless other. ...
The aim of this paper is to make a comparison between two female figures from two different religions. Vashti is one of the unsung heroines in the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible, while Sita in the Book of Ramayana is a revered female figure among Hindus. The tales of these women seem to display similarities in the ideals they embody and hence we endeavour to read them together. We wish to explore the extent to which Vashti and Sita’s tales of female courage and daring could inspire women today who continue to suffocate under oppressive patriarchal contexts. This is relevant to the context of Botswana, where despite global efforts to bend gender-based inequality, women continue to be victimised.
Of the approximately 30 million people living with HIV/AIDS in Africa, 58 per cent are women between the ages of 15-49. If we were to narrow the age bracket to 15-24, 75 per cent of those infected with the virus are young women and girls. It is the argument of this paper that the African Traditional Communitarian Ethics, which still informs most of Black Africa, has joined forces with the predatory male behaviour to leave most African women in a vulnerable position, in the negotiation for safe sex. In this traditional ethic, based on the hierarchically ordered concept of vital force, women have almost no power to say "NO" to male overtures. In conclusion, I argue that the cultural beliefs and practices that socially marginalize and disempower women, especially in sexual matters, which lead to the escalation of HIV/AIDS among contemporary African women, should be reconfigured.
African American women have been keen to highlight that black women are at the 'bottom of the pile' in a society that espouses values of human equality. The situation of the women in Africa is probably worse, as their societies do not propagate human equality. Moreover they have to cope with many other problems such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, the threat of death and male dominance. Though African women theologians were few at the beginning of the 1990s, their number increased during the ten years that followed. This article shows how they were inspired by their sisters, the female African creative writers. Often they felt more solidarity with these sisters than with many African male theologians. Women African theologians and creative writers stand for the same struggle in order to prevent men using their religion be it African traditional religion or Christianity to oppress their sisters.
God in AIDS: Five Years Later
- Nicolson R.
Proverbs 31: 10–31 in a South African Context: A Reading for the Liberation of African (Northern Sotho) Women
- Masenya Madipoane
Vashti‐An Unsung Heroine
- Cohen Jeffery M.
Culture, Gender and HIV/AIDS
- Dube