Gender inequality is fueling the AIDS epidemic. Women are at the epicenter of the AIDS crisis and the story is not what you think it is.

Think we are making headway into AIDS 25 years later?

We are, but not where women are concerned. While total HIV diagnoses in the U.S. dropped from an all-time high of 150,000 cases annually in the mid-80s to 40,000 cases today, women's numbers have gone in reverse. In 1992, American women accounted for 14% of people living with AIDS; today that number has jumped to nearly 25%.

Globally, the numbers are pandemic. More adult women are living with HIV/AIDS than ever before, nearly 50% of infected people worldwide. In countries throughout the world, women are the fastest-growing population of new HIV infections, and in some places women have surpassed men. In sub-Saharan Africa, for every 10 men living with HIV, there are 14 women living with the virus.

Think AIDS is a gay man's disease? Or linked to drug use? Or connected to risky sexual practices?

In 2004, 78% of new HIV infections among women were the result of heterosexual contact. 

And promiscuity? A recent large-scale study out of London of 59 countries found that there is no link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases. Women are getting AIDS because of economic and social inequalities. Most women who contract HIV worldwide are in monogamous relationships, victimized by partners who have unprotected sex with prostitutes and then bring the disease back home, where a woman is unaware or unable to negotiate condom use. It's not promiscuity, but rather a lack of education and resources that increases the rate of HIV infection.

At home, African-American women are suffering the consequences of poverty, inadequate healthcare, discrimination, and unsafe sex. African-American women are 20-times more likely to contract HIV than white women, accounting for 67% of new diagnoses; white women account for 15%. Yet black women constitute 13% of the population as a whole, while white women make up 66%.

So why are women at such high risk? The answer is part biological, in that women are twice as likely as men to contract HIV during vaginal intercourse, but mostly sociological.

What can we do? 

At home, we can get involved with Red Cross HIV/AIDS Youth Prevention Programs and other community-based organizations to educate and empower our youth, as well as lobby our politicians to make HIV/AIDS a domestic priority, in addition to a global one.

Globally, we can all help to make a difference. Two global organizations, UNAIDS and UNIFEM, are making strides every day to help empower women and stop the spread of AIDS at its source: by making women's voices heard, by educating them and helping them achieve financial independence so they can negotiate for safer sex.

For more information or to get involved, visit:

• American Red Cross Prevention Education Programs 
• Global Coalition on Women and AIDS 
• United Nations Development Fund for Women 

December 1 is World AIDS Day. Let's not forget that it's in our backyard and women are becoming the face of this deadly disease.

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