Changing Understandings of Gender and Parenthood in a North-Central Namibian Village

Gender and sexual behaviour have been in the spotlight when discussing reasons for the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa and means of preventing further infections. Although many manifestations of these problems, in terms of gendered power balance, bedroom negotiation power, or multiple concurrent partnerships have been listed in various studies, the interaction between construction of gendered identity and gender aspects of AIDS awareness work needs more analysis. This article takes one northern Namibian village as a case study and looks more closely at how gendered identity construction is changing, and how AIDS educational campaigns interact with the discussion of gender at the local level. I argue that the status of parenthood is changing, in that supporting structures, such as marriage, the home and the joint responsibility of both parents for their children, are fading, although this does not yet show in the definitions of meme and tate – words used to describe women/mothers and men/fathers. This should be explored in educational material instead of concentrating on what are considered to be the negative sides of sexual behaviour.