ABSTRACT
Infection rates continue to rise, and the development of effective programmes for low-income Chilean women has become a serious public health need. Central to the reproduction of gender inequalities in Latin America are concepts of machismo and marianismo. Machismo is related to the social domination and privilege that men have over women in economic, legal, judicial, political, cultural and psychological spheres. The sociocultural factors expressed as machismo and marianismo include gender inequality, lack of communication between partners about sexuality, and violence in relationships. A greater challenge is the risk of HIV infection for women as a result of their partner's behaviour. Forty per cent of the women believed that they were at risk of HIV because of their partner's behaviour: lack of condom use, infidelity, non-injecting drug use and/or daily alcohol consumption that may result in risky sexual behaviours.
