Shifting public/private boundaries: Young women's sexuality within the context of HIV and AIDS in South Africa

The HIV and AIDS pandemic has compelled societies and individuals to engage with issues of sexuality - which have been traditionally regarded as private - as a public issue in ways that were inconceivable in the past. This Focus looks at the ways in which sexuality straddles the public and private domains, and the implications of this dual positioning for young women's safer sex practices within the context of HIV and AIDS. There has been increasing recognition, especially by feminist writers that the division between public and private is not clearsut and that women have been disadvantaged within this binary. I argue that dichotomising the public and the private has the effect of entrenching gender inequalities and maintaining repressive intergenerational interaction, which work separately and together to increase the vulnerability of young women to HIV infection. The feminist goal of diminishing the traditional public/private dichotomy can contribute significantly towards facilitating young women's productive sexual identity constructions that reduce their vulnerability. The public-private binary is interrogated in the following ways: the first section, 'Heterosexuality: A public norm', discusses the dominance of heterosexuality and ways in which these public norms place females at risk to HIV infection; while the second, 'Making private issues public knowledge', deals with how public messages about sexuality restrict women.