Book launch for ATHENA member, Professor Ida Susser

On 5 February 2009, Ida Susser launched her book – Gender Sex and Culture: Global Politics and Survival in Southern Africa – at the Book Lounge, a stone's throw away from the South African Parliament in Cape Town.

The event was well attended, with people sitting and standing on every available space, listening and engaging in a discussion facilitated by Professor Nicoli Natrass of the University of Cape Town. Sibongile Mkhize, a senior researcher at Health Systems Trust who wrote one of the chapters, spoke of writing about how she cared for her sister who died of AIDS. She also talked about what it is like to be left behind and about being "affected" by HIV/AIDS. Promise Mthembu spoke about the layers of marginalization and alienation in treatment programmes that women experience. She also passed on details of a new South African positive women’s organization, Her Right Initiative (HRI), that she was spearheading.

The event was attended by Ida’s parents Zena Stein and Merwyn Susser and many family friends and comrades associated with the progressive health and anti-apartheid movements.