UCLA Center for the Study of Women

How can participatory action research (PAR) and innovative sexuality education improve HIV prevention strategies for women of color? What lessons about sexuality, education, and justice can feminist educators and researchers take from a collaborative project that involves faculty, health educators, students, and incarcerated women of color? Using ethnographic and interview data from an ongoing project in San Francisco County Jail, I explore the pedagogical possibilities found at the intersections of incarceration, participation, and education with and for women of color. In PAR HIV workshops, women work together to offer lessons on health and sexuality that are appropriate for incarcerated women of color. My analysis demonstrates the need to expand conceptions of HIV education to include discussions of structural inequalities including racism, sexism, and heterosexism. Such expansion will allow feminist educators and researchers to expose HIV as a community and social issue and not perpetuate the racist and sexist blame typically directed at individuals. Women of color in particular are vilified for their sexuality; further, queer female sexualities are often absent in HIV and sexuality education. It is imperative that HIV prevention pursue alternative discourses of empowerment.

This project promises to yield new theories of HIV prevention education that bridge the divide between a traditional model of knowledge as means to preventing HIV and a model of empowerment and engagement as a path to healthy sexuality. Including participants’ expertise and experience allows women of all races and sexualities new access to HIV education.