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Provider love in an informal settlement: Men's relationships with providing women and implications for HIV in Kampala, Uganda

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  • Schmidt-Sane, Megan M.

Abstract

Uganda has made progress in controlling the HIV epidemic since it first emerged in the 1980s. While new infections in the country are higher among women, men in urban areas face a higher risk of AIDS-related mortality due to starting treatment later and taking medication inconsistently. While gender analyses have been used to describe women's HIV vulnerability, less is known about how masculinity, and especially different forms of masculinity, affect men's vulnerability. This study reports on data from an ethnography (2016–2019) with low-income men in urban Uganda. This study uses gender and power theory to describe how men's relationships with female sex workers in an informal settlement in urban Kampala, Uganda are characterized by female providers (“provider love”) and male dependents. Young men in this sample, largely jobless, rely on their relationships for daily survival. As gender roles reverse, young men find themselves unable to attain masculine ideals as expected of Baganda men. Instead, men in this sample face less power in their relationships, a loss of masculine respectability, and diminished reputations in the community. These intersections of gender, economic struggle, power, and intimacy reconfigure men's HIV vulnerability in this setting. Public health programming on HIV/AIDS for men should consider different patterns of masculinity, power, and economic struggle and how they impact HIV outcomes.

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  • Schmidt-Sane, Megan M., 2021. "Provider love in an informal settlement: Men's relationships with providing women and implications for HIV in Kampala, Uganda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:276:y:2021:i:c:s0277953621001799
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113847
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tim Shand & Hayley Thomson‐de Boor & Wessel van den Berg & Dean Peacock & Laura Pascoe, 2014. "The HIV Blind Spot: Men and HIV Testing, Treatment and Care in Sub‐Saharan Africa," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(1), pages 53-60, January.
    2. Connell, Raewyn, 2012. "Gender, health and theory: Conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(11), pages 1675-1683.
    3. Mark Hunter, 2015. "The political economy of concurrent partners: toward a history of sex-love-gift connections in the time of AIDS," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(145), pages 362-375, September.
    4. Siu, Godfrey E. & Seeley, Janet & Wight, Daniel, 2013. "Dividuality, masculine respectability and reputation: How masculinity affects men's uptake of HIV treatment in rural eastern Uganda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 45-52.
    5. Higgins, J.A. & Hoffman, S. & Dworkin, S.L., 2010. "Rethinking gender, heterosexual men, and women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(3), pages 435-445.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mbonye, Martin & Siu, Godfrey & Seeley, Janet, 2022. "Marginal men, respectable masculinity and access to HIV services through intimate relationships with female sex workers in Kampala, Uganda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    2. Schmidt-Sane, Megan, 2022. "Male partners of female sex workers: The intersectional risk environment of HIV/AIDS in a Kampala informal settlement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).

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