Not all women are innocent

It dawned on me recently that I have been going about this all wrong. Okay, maybe not wrong, but at least unfairly.

Thinking about most of the columns I have written, if they were to be played out on the main stage, the protagonist would be a man between the age of 20-45. He would be promiscuously spreading HIV and Aids.

He would either be a young student at Chancellor college, devilishly good looking and charming, all the guys want to be like him and all the girls want to be with him. And he too sheepishly wants to be with every girl.

Or he would be young urban professional, late twenties, housed in Kanjedza, good job in the bank and upwardly mobile, beautiful wife with a two-year-old child, but is not satisfied with all his good fortune, so he spends his time in beer halls frequented by sex workers.

Or he could be a fisherman from Nkhata Bay who frequently travels to Mzuzu to sell his fish, but conducts fishy business during the nights away from home. Or a wealthy well-recognised man who sleeps around with girls old enough to be his daughter.

He he he he

, where are the women in this? This is where I have been biased. It could be as a woman, I have cast men as the villains, but for the virus to have reached epidemic proportions it takes two…

They are a lot of women who are innocent bystanders, women whose love and devotion are abused by their husbands, schools girls who get taken advantage of by teachers, young children who get molested by people who are supposed to care for them.

But then there is another lot of women…scandalous, gold diggers whose quest in life is to have a fancy car, four bedroom house in Nyambadwe , latest mobile phone and designer handbag all bought during weekend sojourns to South Africa.

I know a girl who was sleeping with a married man. He bought her a car, but she wanted the latest Corolla not a second hand Rav 4, so out of spite she started seeing another married man.

There are women who cheat on their husbands because their husbands cheat on them or their husbands don’t provide for their material wants. There are girls in high schools and colleges who are lured by the money from sugar daddies.

I have cousins in the village who are not even 21, yet they have children by different men and are now back with their parents are looking for their “third” husband.

Why am I writing this?

I want to bring attention to all the characters; this is not about pointing fingers or placing blame. This is about considering our actions and the actions of others. I wanted to highlight that HIV comes into people’s lives in many ways. And that both men and women should consider their actions and the role they have in playing it safe and getting tested.

The minute you (men and women) have unprotected sex with someone, if either of your HIV statuses is unknown, then you are putting lives—yours, theirs and all their partners and their partners’ partners—at risk.

Unprotected sex comes with a huge responsibility, an obligation to consider the lives of other people.