Robert Wyrod: Women’s Rights and Women’s Sexual Health—A Complicated Relationship

Robert Wyrod, Women & Gender Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder

In the West, the connection between women’s rights and women’s sexual health is often taken as a given. Women’s successful struggles for sexual autonomy, reclaiming sexual desire, and control over reproduction were foundational aspects of the women’s liberation movement. This talk examines why this link between rights and sexual health cannot be assumed in many non-Western contexts. Drawing on ethnographic research in Uganda, a country noted for its promotion of women’s rights, Robert discusses the rather puzzling disconnect he encountered between women’s rights and women’s sexual health. He will present a four-part framework that helps explain this disconnect and then discuss the implications these findings have for the sexual health of African women, and men, in the context of HIV/AIDS.