Gender, violence and HIV: women's survival in the streets

In this article I propose that gender inequality promotes--directly or indirectly--vulnerability to HIV as a consequence of a multidimensional violence (structural, symbolic and physical) experienced by injection drug using (IDU) women in The Mission District (San Francisco). Given the female subordinated position stipulated by the street ideology, I analyze how drug dependence afforded by precarious strategies of subsistence places IDU women under multiple dangers and threats. In this setting, unequal gender relations are part of a complex system of transactions in the street economy and a way to reduce or increase the everyday violence. Facing multiple dangers and risks, some women adopt a subordinated position, some try to negotiate the conditions of the exchanges and the others resist the exploitation. Finally, everyday violence under conditions of gender inequality and scarcity of resources imposes a logic defined by the challenge of survival under the threat of immediate dangers, which transform HIV into a secondary risk.