Feminism’s Medicine: Risk, Race, Gender and Law in the Aids Epidemic

How did the world come to see women as “at risk” for HIV? How did a disease of men come to kill women? Against a linear narrative of scientific discovery and progress, Feminism’s Medicine argues that it was women’s rights lawyers and activists that fundamentally altered the legal and scientific response to the epidemic by changing core conceptions of who was at risk of contracting HIV. In other words, feminists not only changed the legal governance of AIDS, they altered the scientific trajectory of the epidemic. In doing so, they moved resources towards women in the epidemic. Feminists advocated for women to be seen as a risk group for HIV in multiple locations: in U.S. administrative agencies, courthouses across the country, as well as in global governance institutions. The talk will consider the impact of a diverse range of feminisms for its impact on scientific ideas, legal reform agendas, and the distributional consequences of feminist engagement in the AIDS epidemic.
Aziza Ahmed is an associate professor of law at the Northeastern School of Law. She is an expert in health law, human rights, property law, international law and development. Her interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on issues of both domestic and international law. Join the IFLS for this talk.
Tickets: https://webform.osgoode.yorku.ca/view.php?id=561601.