Policing, Politicizing, Poeticizing the Virgin/Whore Split: Contemporary American Women's Poetry about AIDS — Page 11:
51 In fact, the inversion of their perceived social roles characterizes all four women poets discussed here. Their poetry provides an active witness to the gendering of HIV/AIDS. As women writing about AIDS approach their subject matter, they have to confront the good girl/bad girl dichotomy. Often overlooked, the women poets of AIDS provide an important and compelling perspective to the age of AIDS in the United States by resisting those social constructions that would limit their cultural and social authority. Their work begins to fill in the void of the first decade of HIV/AIDS literature by gendering it and giving voice to both the experience of the caregiver and those women positive for HIV. The culture of HIV/AIDS has created specific roles for women within the pandemic. By writing, as women in other generations have done before, out of the silences created by those gendered stereotypes, these poets interrupt the stereotypes. This crucial work lays the groundwork for a new literary tradition: the women poets of HIV/AIDS.