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7 care Work the women we interviewed spoke frequently of work in general and about care work in particular. many of the women in our study fear for their own day-to-day survival in terms of just finding enough food to eat and not suddenly dropping dead of hiv (several women expressed this as their greatest fear). despite these real concerns about themselves, they also talked about taking care of their men partners and their children and worrying about the care work that remains undone . in the next chapter we will look at the care work women do for their partners and how that work often takes place in the context of violent relationships. This chapter focuses on the general issue of care work as it relates to people living with hiv and care work that the women in our study do for their children. care work is a central feature of nearly all women’s lives, and it is a core component of the dominant versions of the social construction of femininity: emphasized femininities. in most societies, including South Africa, to be a woman is to be expected to do care work—in fact, to spend a lot of time providing care for others . The issue of care, not surprisingly, emerged as a significant discourse in our interviews. care work was discussed in two related forms. first, the need for care is critical among people living with hiv; the women in our study reflected that need and the difficulties they face in finding, or, more often, not finding, adequate care. Second, the care work that women provide for their families is an important part of their lives and an essential aspect of how they construct themselves as women. for these women, constructing oneself as feminine and normal ideally includes living in an intimate relationship with a man and working for a living . Another feature of femininity that is central to the experience of the participants is taking care of others, especially the children and men in their lives. The issue of care work is one that emerged as a key factor in the discourse of women as they described their experience of hiv, the challenges they face, and their efforts to normalize themselves in spite of these challenges. care Work as Social Support many different terms are used to refer to various forms of care work. one of the terms frequently used in the hiv literature is “social support.” however, this is a broad term, because there are many ways people living with hiv may receive social support (if they are indeed receiving any support at all). Although the term is difficult to define because it has been used in so many different ways by various scholars, green (1993) offers a general definition of social support in the context 86 care Work | 87 of illness: “(i) the existence, quantity and type of interpersonal relationships (network structure or social interaction), (ii) the functional content of these relationships (emotional, psychological, tangible or informational support), and (iii) the perceived quality or adequacy of this support” (p. 90). All of these aspects of social support are part of the experience of people living with hiv. People with chronic illnesses such as hiv sometimes receive different forms of social support from friends and family members, from support groups, and from social workers and health-care workers (folkman, chesney & christopherrichards , 1994; friedland, renwick & mccoll, 1996; green, 1993; Kelly & mzizi, 2005; Schwarzer, dunkel-Schetter & Kemeny, 1994). Social support from all of these sources has been found to contribute to quality of life. good social support, regardless of the source, is said to have a buffering effect against the anxiety resulting from many of the challenges of living with hiv, including stigma (Servellen & Lombardi, 2005). in addition to aiding in emotional support and reducing fear and worry, this kind of comfort has critical implications for the health of those receiving the care. People who receive adequate social support from their healthcare provider, for example, show better adherence to Arvs and other medication (Bakken et al., 2000; catz, heckman, Kochman & dimarco, 2001; chesney, 2003). Lower stress and better adherence to medication regimens result in improved physical health. People living with hiv who receive what they consider adequate support have higher cd4 counts and a longer survival rate (Ashton et al., 2005; Theorell et al., 1995). As the prevalence of hiv increases, particularly for women, the need for care and social support increases, but care and support systems are...

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