Women take care : gender, race, and the culture of AIDS / Katie Hogan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hogan, Katie, 1960-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

AIDS (Disease) in women.

Physical Description:

xvi, 178 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2001.

Summary:

Self-sacrificing mothers and forgiving wives, caretaking lesbians, and vigilant maternal surrogates -- these "good women" are all familiar figures in the visual and print culture relating to AIDS. Drawing on examples from journalism, medical discourse, fiction, drama, film, and television, Katie Hogan describes how texts on AIDS reproduce this historically entrenched paradigm of sacrifice and care, a paradigm that reinforces biases about race and sexuality.

Hogan believes that the growing nostalgia for women's traditional roles has deflected attention away from women's own health needs. Throughout her book, she depicts caretaking as a fundamental human obligation, but one that currently falls primarily to those members of society with the least power. Only by rejecting the stereotype of the "good woman," she says, can Americans begin to view caretaking as the responsibility of the entire society.

Contents:

1 Women and AIDS: Paradox of Visibility 1

2 Little Eva Revisited 33

3 Absent Mothers and Missing Children 57

4 The Lesbian Mammy 80

5 What Looks Like Progress: Black Feminist Narratives on HIV / AIDS 102

6 Conclusion: Beyond Sentimental AIDS 130.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [157]-169) and index.

ISBN:

0801436273

0801487536

OCLC:

45413464