The invisible women: caregiving and the construction of AIDS health services.

In health services research about the utilization by and financing of health services for people with AIDS, women kin as caregivers virtually disappear and the sacrifices made by women kin become socially invisible. Any role that women play is subsumed under the rubric "community care." The health services perspective is contrasted with the lived realities of caregiving by women kin as documented in data from a "needs assessment" of people with AIDS which the New Jersey Department of Health commissioned and then disregarded. The disregarding of women's caregiving is part of larger hegemonic processes that maintain concealed structures of domination.