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BCAPOP WINTER VIRTUAL CONFERENCE - SPEAKERS |
Tanika Dillard is a natural leader, prolific speaker, and trusted advisor to her peers. featured speaker | MARVELOUS MUCHENJE | Beyond Silence & Stigma: Pregnancy and HIV for Black Women in Canada
Overview
Dominant representations of HIV suggest that it is a death sentence, rather than a condition that people live with. Even where progressive media and social justice organizations challenge this image, people living with HIV continue to be seen as white, gay men. Black women living with HIV are often invisible and those who experience pregnancy and motherhood are doubly marginalized due to their lack of white privilege and HIV stigma. Where their experiences are recognized, they are viewed as a homogenous group with their identity as a person living with HIV superseding their identity as women of colour. Understanding the complexities in the lives of black women living with HIV in Canada requires us to explore the impact of culture, race, class, gender, migration, and sexuality on women's pregnancies and birth experiences and not simply the hegemonic biomedical fixation with HIV.
About Marvelous Muchenje
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Marvelous is a PhD Student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. With a professional and activist background in sexual and reproductive rights, Marvelous is passionate about seeking social justice in all its forms – not just by improving the lives of individuals, but by changing systems of oppression through collective action. An affirming HIV-positive Black woman, Marvelous has made it her mission to spread love and empowerment. She is a writer, motivational speaker and advocate for marginalized communities. Marvelous sits on several national boards with a global reach, which she uses to uplift the narratives of those who face injustice. She believes that justice must be intersectional and inclusive in order to improve the quality of life for all.