West Papuan ‘Housewives’ with HIV: Gender, Marriage, and Inequality in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia defies gendered HIV risk stereotypes, and most women with HIV do not fit any pre-defined risk groups. In Indonesia, HIV predominates in women who identify as ‘housewives’. In the dominant imaginary, housewives are married homemakers, dedicated to children and husband, faithful, and sexually modest. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with Indigenous Papuan women in Manokwari, West Papua province, I problematise the category of the housewife and show how gendered structural inequalities contribute to Papuan HIV experiences and risks. The West Papuan frontier economy is racialised, male-dominated, and sexualised. Papuan ‘housewives’ may be left behind while husbands are away working and studying. Rather than experience sympathy and support, Papuan ‘housewives’ with HIV expect stigma and are let down by healthcare services. By including interviews with ‘sex workers’, I show that there are common structural inequalities faced by women, regardless of which moral category they appear to represent. While not commensurate with the rest of Indonesia, structural inequalities in West Papua signal the need for deeper attention to gendered inequalities and structural violence to prevent HIV among women.