Shona Womanhood: Rethinking Social Identities in the Face of HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Introduction One of the major problems in sub-Saharan Africa at the moment outside ethnic conflict is the issue of HIV and AIDS. The scourge has created multifarious problems that even call for fundamental changes to obtaining social relationships and patterns of existence that had almost assumed an absolute character in many African cultural groups over the years. This work focuses on the impact of the HIV and AIDS disease on Shona society with specific focus on Shona women. The Shona constitutes one of the largest cultural groups in Zimbabwe. This work has been prompted by an upsetting revelation that rather than being a solution to the problem of HIV and AIDS marriage has become a heath on which the disease breeds and is then passed on to partners. According to the Zimbabwe Human Development Report more and more women are being infected inside marriages than outside (iii). All this has been blamed on the patriarchal social philosophy that condones wayward behavior as part of what defines the Shona man. While it may sound unfortunately like blaming the victim, the work argues that armed with their numerical advantage Zimbabwean women have what it takes to bring about positive change and reduce the spread of the disease if only they could transform themselves into agents of cultural change or incubators of a new social arrangement. The work considers how the Shona women over the years have been made vulnerable by the very identities which they have taken for granted or as given and therefore natural. Of particular interest to this work is the construction of womanhood among the Shona based on two elements of being a wife and a mother which are stipulatively taken by the writer as 'belonging' and 'producing' respectively. This work draws on the theory of social constructionism and the idea of agency to argue that in confronting the pandemic women can do well to 'think outside the box' provided by their own Shona tradition and culture in order to build new identities for themselves that can empower them to confront the pandemic. To bring about that positive change, women also need to confront cultural and gender essentialism as well as selective labeling (iv), weapons used by dominant members of a cultural group to maintain the status quo. The work goes on to make recommendations on how women can construct enabling identities that may reduce their vulnerability. Theoretical Framework This work is informed by the theory of social constructionism. Social constructionism as a theory emphasizes that we take a critical stance towards our taken for granted ways of understanding the world including of course ourselves. The theory of social constructionism is premised on yet another important assumption that all ways of understanding, that is all the ways in which we commonly understand the world and ourselves, the categories and concepts we use, do bear historical and cultural clothing (v). Nothing is therefore predetermined or absolute. Since the social world, including ourselves as people, is the product of social processes, it follows therefore that there cannot be any given nor are there essences about people that cannot be challenged hence the need to critique both gender and cultural essentialism. Essentialism refers to the existence of fixed characteristics, given attributes and a historical functions that limit the possibilities of change and of social reorganization. As a theory social constructionism gives credence to human agency, that is, the view that human beings can change themselves and the world they live in through the force of their apparently independently developed and freely chosen beliefs and actions. Social constructionism as a philosophy is therefore potentially liberating for women as it allows them to put to question and hence deconstruct the patriachally constituted and male tainted images of women that have almost assumed an absolute character. …