Women at Barcelona: what is wrong with you?

At the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, a small group of women demonstrated during the rapporteurs' session when the conference issues of the week were being presented. The women carried slogans reading 'women need treatment now.' The demonstration created a disturbance and elicited a lot of comments.

'Did we just see a bunch of lesbians, pretending to represent women's issues?' asked Romy Mathys from Switzerland on the online discussion resulting from events during the International AIDS Conference. Mathys maintained that the aggressive behaviour demonstrated by the women was the reaction of a bunch of lesbians pretending to represent women's issues.

In response to these comments, Donna Rochon agreed that the women demonstrators choose the wrong methods of expressing their discontent with the current state of affairs. However, she argued that the epithet about lesbians by a woman sadly reinforced the misogynist rant that any woman who protests too much is an uptight lesbian who needs a strong man. Another participant to the discussion forum, Dr Joyce Hunter, noted that there are many intelligent women struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families and a better world for all. To suggest that their sexual orientation is an issue, that they are all lesbians, and that that makes them less women or less caring was an insult, she wrote. There is a need to conduct advocacy on many levels worldwide about different sexual orientations. She added that worldwide, there is a general opening up of most societies to more options for different genders, women have become more financially independent and consciousness about women's rights has increased in society in general.

For African women, sexual orientation is a pertinent issue. We continued to be divided on this issue. While gays and lesbians are now viewed more liberally and dictected in many societies, in Africa, they are not acknowledged. It is believed that lesbianism is a western phenomenon and untraditionally African, that lesbians are members of urban societies and are found only in certain classes. All these beliefs are untrue.

Africans who are gay or lesbian therefore encounter many problems, among them state repression. For example Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called gays and lesbians worse than dogs. Discrimination, risks of physical and sexual violence and ostracism also have to be contended with. African governments even encourage cultural and...