OBJECTIVES: to understand the social representation of poor married women in relation to AIDS. This understanding will contribute to fight the epidemics in a way more in tune with reality. METHODS: sixteen interviews were accomplished in poor women with stable marriages. The interviews were taped, transcribed and grouped according to evaluation and analysis criteria. Analysis was performed through a hermeneutic proposal related to the interpretation of underlying meanings. RESULTS: there was an increase of women's vulnerability concerning HIV/AIDS based on the social awareness these women have of AIDS, considering that their perception eventually provides them with a false immunity sensation for they do not have the profile which they imagine carry the virus or the disease. CONCLUSIONS: current epidemiological AIDS profile points towards women as the target of infection, particularly through sexual relations which are established by gender relations. They regard AIDS as a distant evil, and if close, not related to them, and when it does it is legitimated by being "the deed of God" or stemming from their own roles as wives.
Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome; Vulnerability; Women
