This paper analyzes the understanding among female community health workers in the Family Health Program in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, concerning the notion of safe sex negotiation promoted by the Brazilian government in AIDS prevention campaigns targeting women. The paper is based on empirical data gathered in 2003. The study focused on TV advertisements used in campaigns by the Brazilian Ministry of Health from 1994 to 2000. The analytical approach was informed by feminist and cultural studies, taken from a post-structuralist and Foucauldian perspective. The research aimed to produce knowledge to support a critical reading of such education for HIV/AIDS prevention, especially concerning gender relations. The paper argues that knowledge and practices permeating the "safe sex negotiation" discourse incorporate, reproduce, and/or transmit hegemonic representations of masculinity and femininity and that these representations differentiate and highlight hierarchical positions of women in relation to men and/or women in relation to other women, producing and/or reinforcing prejudices and inequalities.
Safe Sex; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Television; Gender