“Knowing ‘Her’ Status”: Sex, Gender, and Women’s Rights in HIV and AIDS Campaigns, Lesotho
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Young women in Lesotho are a high-risk group for new HIV infections despite a heavy investment in health programs for that demographic.This study investigates sexual rights discourses by both NGOs and local Basotho women to evaluate how much they align to promote women's sexual empowerment.The underlying assumption is that how women's rights are framed and incorporated into HIV campaigns reflects, and seeks to effect, certain social mores that may/may not resonate with Basotho women's own views on sexual rights, with significant implications for the success of HIV prevention efforts.A critical discourse analysis of interviews and focus group data is used to conclude that NGOs promote discourses on women's sexual rights that align with the discourses prevalent among local young women.However, both discourses reinforce cultural frames of women's sexual rights that reinforce women's sexual subservience and disempowerment, thus accounting for young women's continued vulnerability to HIV infections.I am especially grateful to my parents, Mr. Pascal and Mrs. Eline Mpalirwa, for their financial, spiritual and physical support as I worked tirelessly to complete the thesis and submit it on time.They remain the anchor on which many people, not just their children, stand and I would be remiss if I did not thank them publicly and tirelessly because I could not have completed this research without the money, food, and prayers that they blessed me with.My gratitude also goes out to my siblings who provided the moral support that I needed to push through obstacles both in Lesotho and back in Ottawa.Sarah, you are my ride or die, thank you for helping proof my data consistency and taking time off your own busy school schedule to help a sister in need.I am forever grateful for all the things that you do for me.My gratitude also goes out to Mme Makabi, Maria, Mme Rofilwe, the high school principals in Maseru and the rest of the people in Lesotho that made the fieldwork possible.I could not have done this work without your help and for that, I am forever grateful.To the NGOs that agreed to participate in my research, speaking candidly and frankly about their work, thank you -your work is integral to the fight against HIV and I am privileged to have had an opportunity to meet with you.Most importantly, to the young women that I interviewed in Lesotho, and to the rest of the strong and resilient young women on the continent who work hard and diligently for the rights to sit at the table, let alone be seen and heard, this is for you -tuko pamoja milele!Lastly, and most importantly, I would like to acknowledge and thank Jehovah Jireh -You indeed provided.What an adventure -"Only Grace.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".