?No sex please, we?re Swazi?

Article in Training:      

The article may be used to explore prevailing stereotypes about women being the cause of the pandemic; as well as technical skills such as the headline.

 

Trainer’s Notes:          

The sex ban is cloaked within a Swazi cultural practice of preserving virginity called Umchwasho.  The difficulty with this approach is that it focuses exclusively on women, as though women have sex alone. Indeed, most studies suggest that women do not have much control or say over when, where and how they have sex. Therefore an approach that focuses solely on preserving the virginity of women misses the point.

 

With regard to genre, the article a news piece which is bereft of analysis and depth, as the reporter failed to get any reaction from either women or men in the community.

 

In terms of journalistic skills, the headline is misleading as it creates the impression of a popular and national sex ban when in fact the ban was a diktat, ironically announced by a female emissary of the King. 

 

 

Training Exercises:     

Participants should be asked to (a) interrogate the article using gender and HIV/AIDS as perspectives and state its flaws with a view to improving it; (b) Re-do the story conscious of the flaws identified in (a). Field exercises may include asking participants to go out and do interviews with young women and men on how they would react if such a ban were imposed in their country.

 

Links to Resources:

Gender and HIV/AIDS: A Training Manual for Southern African Media and Communicators, Chapter Seven: Gender, Culture, Religion and HIV/AIDS.