COMING INTO VIEW:
WOMEN, FAMILIES & AIDSFor two years now, I have been interviewing mothers with AIDS and their children for psychological research studies. Unlike the general public, I have been privy to intimate and detailed accounts of their struggles and successes in coping with their illness. As a photographer, I have tried to embody their little known experiences in revealing images.
None have remained so in the dark as women with AIDS and their families. Despite the fact that women represent the most rapidly expanding group of the infected (men infect women with HIV at least six times as often as women infect men), they remain largely unseen and unheard. Where the gay male community has rallied against prejudice, the vast majority of women stay isolated, some (as they get sicker) never leaving their homes. While many have small family networks to support them, they disclose their illness to no one, fearing that they and their children will be ostracized. The women in my photographs are part of a tiny but growing group of infected women who are willing to go public to fight the stigma attached to AIDS.
These women come from a variety of backgrounds; some were IV drug users and prostitutes, one is a film actress and lawyer, one a published poet, one a college student, another an artist. Most of them contracted the virus from their husbands or partners. Two of the children pictured are also HIV positive, while another was born HIV positive and addicted to cocaine, but converted to negative and is now completely healthy. Many of the women are active in the AIDS field as counselors and educators. Most of them are photographed at home, where their lives go on, visibly almost unchanged.
Mary Berridge
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Last modified: 3/8/96
