South African Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi says that women have a duty to be subject to--and carry out--virginity tests in the name of curbing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Interestingly enough, Buthelezi shrouded his women-need-to-remain-chaste argument in feminist rhetoric.
In a Women's Day speech yesterday Buthelezi ventured into the controversial topic of virginity testing, a cultural practice that could soon be outlawed. He was addressing a rally of the IFP Women's Brigade in Durban and raised the issue in an effort to "dispel the myth of virgin cure" - the belief that sex with a virgin could cure a man of HIV and Aids."I want to see the women and men of our party campaigning to dispel this myth," Buthelezi said, adding that women were already bearing the brunt of the HIV and Aids pandemic.
"I want to see women taking the lead to educate and empower other women to control their sexual relationships. In African society it was always women who safeguarded the chastity of virgins before marriage. It is older women who carry out virginity tests on younger women. It was not done on an order from any man."
..."It was women's duty then and it is women's duty [today] especially now that we are being overwhelmed by the pandemic of HIV/Aids."
Uh huh. So this is about empowering women...to remain virgins and to ensure virginity? Virginity tests aren’t about dispelling myths of a “virgin cure,� they’re about the (false) idea that women’s virginity will prevent HIV/AIDS. And the men? Apparently they don’t have any "duties" when it comes to disease prevention.
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How would virginity tests discourage the "virgin cure" myth? Wouldn't it just make women who are known to be virgins even more likely to be raped by HIV-carrying men?
This is creepy as all hell.
Peace,
TH
I don't get how the hell this idea that sex with a virgin would cure AIDS ever caught on. Keep you from getting it, sure, but curing it? It defies common sense. Do the people who believe this crap see a doctor, or a witch doctor? What century are we living in, that belief in a "magical cure" is so rampant that it's cited as a reason why AIDS has reached such epidemic proportions? Is the whole country rubbing lemon juice on their warts under a full moon, too? Unbelievable...
Confused, yet again... how do you "check" for virginity? I thought we all knew that you can lose your hymen without having sex. Or is there some other way that they're checking? I don't get it.
And yeah, it's creepy.
Now for the good news.
Bill and Melinda Gates: We Need to Put the Power of HIV Prevention in the Hands of Women: http://www.europapress.es/europa2003/noticia.aspx?tabID=1&ch=137&cod=20060814010230
I was worried when I saw similar headlines about this this morning that it was going to be abstinence b.s. (for which of course women would be responsible). But it's the opposite. The emphasis is on "Power."
I actually attended these speeches and other Women's Day events in Durban last week. I almost wept I was so angry.
Does the "women need to be virgins to prevent HIV" guy know the incident of rape in these HIV-prevalent countries? A lot of the infected women weren't given a choice as far as the intercourse.
Well yeah, EJ, but the notion that rape victims were asking for it is one of the few things that transcends culture and race.
"they’re about the (false) idea that women’s virginity will prevent HIV/AIDS."
What part of this statement is false? Having sex with virgins will ensure you do not get HIV unless you believe most of the HIV transmission in Africa is not due to sexual activity.
Ideally, we would just leave these people alone, to take part in their brutal cultural practices in peace. For you girls, a clandestine sexual relationship is ostensibly an important means of self-expression; for an African woman, it can be a death sentence. The end result, for the betterment of society in general, should be some form of HIV containment and if "virginity tests" help to do so, then all the better. The idea of "empowering women" as a solution is great but unfortunately for us its an esoteric discussion and for them its just not a reality.
lavans, why would virginity TESTS help stop HIV spread?
You're right that remaining a virgin makes it harder to get HIV. That said, shouldn't that be a private matter? Or do you somehow think it's appropriate to probe around for a hymen every couple of months?
Another frustration here is that a huge part of the problem is men. Africa has some of the highest rape statistics on earth. Thousands of young children were intentionally infected because sex with virgins was supposed to "cure" HIV-infected men. To say that the onus is on women to remain virginal is a worthless position because it ignores the fact that the main spreaders of the virus are male - and those males aren't often taking "no" for an answer!