stigma

Objective: Although HIV-infected women in Iran face many problems, researches in this area are limited. This research aims to understand and deeply comprehend the issues and challenges of HIV-infected women. Method: Qualitative content analysis was used in this study and participants in the research of HIV-infected women were using three supportive health centers in Tehran. 17 participants were selected through purposive sampling method. The data collection technique is a semi-structured in-depth interview. Thematic data were coded and interpreted using thematic analysis. Results: 6 categories of interview analysis were: "social exclusion", "job problems", "social phobia caused by stigma", "mental problems", "treatment problems" and “coping mechanisms”. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that HIV-infected women face many challenges in the individual and social field for the social reunion and to reduce their problems, besides individual empowerment, structural and social interventions are also essential. The results of this study can be used in the field of policy-making, the presentation of supportive programs, social services for HIV-infected women and their families.

Disability has an omnipresence in our daily lives, from our encounters with people with disabilities in real-life experiences to encountering them in novels, movies, and video games. After the Vietnam War was pursued by movements like Civil Rights and social discourses revolving around race, gender, and sexuality gained momentum in the 1970s, there was an urge for a civil rights-based model for disability. Previously, disability was considered a physical or mental deviance in the individual, an affliction to be cured or eliminated. This medical model gave its place to a social model, in which the social, political, and cultural environment rendered people with impairments disabled. Recently, some theorists have denounced drawing lines between the social and medical models and instead propose a liminal cultural model, believing that this mixed paradigm is the only model that does justice to the lived experiences of people with disabilities. The present study aims at analyzing John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men. It investigates how Lennie, a person with a cognitive disability, is treated and the challenges he faces, grounded on Garland-Thomson’s cultural theorization of disability through three concepts of feminism, otherness, and disability.