Table 2 Opportunities and challenges for men's involvement in HIV/AIDS caregiving
Opportunities | Challenges |
|---|---|
Men's physical strength/lifting and transporting patients | Perception of men's dishonesty/womanizing/untrustworthiness/promiscuity |
Psychological flexibility | Perception that men will sexualize care situations |
Safe mobility | Women's sense of modesty/decorum |
Influencing other men to get tested and give care to other men | Traditional prohibitions against entering spaces where women need to be alone; or that father-in-law cannot care for daughter-in-law |
Ease of communication with other men | HIV/AIDS caregiving is unpaid labour |
Intimate tasks with men | Â |
Sharing and solidarity with women | Male breadwinner status and unwillingness to work without financial incentives |
Knowledge of first aid | Men's loss of discretionary time |
Men can keep secrets | Appropriation of women's social role |
Financial incentive for community health workers | Ridicule |