Ongoing gender inequalities are frequently cited as a major reason for high HIV
prevalence rates in southern Africa. While steps have been made to promote and pass
legislation that upholds equal rights for women, this paper examines the ways in which
discourses of gender equality and ensuing sexual rights can have complex, contradictory
and even adverse implications for individuals when they are mobilised, resisted and
reinterpreted at local level. Drawing upon research undertaken in the Caprivi Region of
Namibia, this paper examines the ways in which men and women respond to ideas
about gender equality and seeks to place these responses within the wider context of
socio-economic change and understandings of morality prevalent within the region. The
tendency of many young women to seek out relationships with older men and the
increasing costs of bride-wealth payments play a key role in reinforcing patriarchal
attitudes and fuelling disrespect for women’s rights both before and within marriage. In
addition, a failure to adhere to customary norms which uphold men’s dominant role
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continues to threaten the support networks and assets available to women. The
consequences of this situation are examined with particular focus on implications for the
future transmission of HIV.