Wherever they are educated, able to generate income, and enjoy equal protection under the law, they are in a position to have some control over their economic, social and personal life. But for millions of women, these goals are still remote. Women are also more vulnerable to other sexually transmitted diseases. As compared with men, women have a bigger surface area of mucosa exposed during intercourse to their partner's sexual secretions. And semen infected with HIV typically contains a higher concentration of virus than a woman's sexual secretions.
Younger women are at even greater biological risk.
There is evidence that women again become more vulnerable after the menopause. Throughout the world, women run a similar risk from unprotected anal intercourse. Sometimes preferred because it preserves virginity and avoids the risk of pregnancy, this form of sex often tears the delicate tissues and affords easy entry to the virus. Between half and four-fifths of STD cases in women go unrecognized because the sores or other signs are absent or hard to see and because women, if they are monogamous, do not suspect they are at risk. Around the world, infection rates have been lowered by screening blood for transfusion, by frank information about how HIV can spread, by clear prevention messages urging abstinence, fidelity or safer sex, by condom promotion, by needle exchange programmes for drug users, and by encouraging and enabling people to get prompt care for STDs.