Don't Sleep African Women: Powerlessness and HIV/AIDS Vulnerability Among Kenyan Women

Dont sleep African women: Powerlessness and HIV/AIDS vulnerability among Kenyan women exemplifies conditions in the society that women face, exacerbating their vulnerabilities. Women have been vulnerable to HIV/AIDS since the epidemic emerged but not much literature was targeted to Kenyan women. It is postulated that HIV vulnerability has to be studied in the context of patriarchy and cultural constraints. The book posits that womens circumstances are unique and thus a different paradigm is needed, when studying women and HIV/AIDS vulnerability discourses.

African women are more prone and vulnerable to HIV/AIDS because of social, economic, and cultural constraints present in society. This book is not intended to reinforce the same archaic stereotypes rampant in many writings on African women, who are often portrayed as helpless and passive diseased bodies. The author rejects the stigmatization of this disease; Kenyan women have suffered in silence because of the stigma and shame of a disease that carries connotations of promiscuity and bad behavior. Until HIV vulnerability is acknowledged and fought, women will continue to succumb overwhelmingly to this disease and Kenya will gradually disintegrate as it will inevitably have many sick people, intensifying underdevelopment. Dont Sleep African Women is a cry for all women to mobilize, get up on the rooftops and blow the infamous vuvuzelas and demand protection from this disease. A lot more African women need to stand up, be courageous, be proactive, and take control of their lives from the scourge of this disease.

Dr. Waithera is an educator, HIV/AIDS counselor, and activist who earned her masters degree in international affairs, specializing in African women and global health, and shortly after she earned a PhD from the Ohio State University. She is passionate about elucidating the conditions that promote vulnerability to HIV/AIDS among women and reclaiming African womens lives, identities, and dignity in the advent of HIV/AIDS vulnerabilities within their distinct spatial locations.

Dr. Waithera has taught in top institutions such as Middlebury College, Dartmouth College, The Ohio State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.