VIENNA, AUSTRIA -- At a talk following a standing-ovation screening of The Other City, a documentary about HIV in Washington, D.C., executive producer Sheila Johnson made a bold statement: Standing just feet away from the Black AIDS Institute's Phill Wilson, who often identifies AIDS in America as a Black disease, she turned the tables and declared, "Women are the victims and face of this disease."

Johnson had every reason to say such a thing. Simply look at the numbers: 50 percent,, or 15.7 million HIV infections worldwide, occur among women; 60 percent of the 5.4 million young people living globally with HIV are women; and 40 percent of all new infections occur among 15-24 year olds, with the majority being women. In the U.S. women represent a much smaller share of those infected--27 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS. But African American women are becoming infected in far greater numbers (see p. 10) than any other racial or ethic group except gay and bisexual Black and White men. HIV/AIDS was the third leading cause of death for Black American women ages 25-34 in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available.

With such sobering evidence almost 30 years into the epidemic, it seems almost nonsensical that women combating the disease still needed to insist that their issues be examined critically and centrally at the 18th Annual International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010).

Yet their persistence paid off, causing AIDS 2010 to be decidedly more woman-centered than the conference had been in years past. Some superficial changes likely went unnoticed by many in attendance, including, according to the organization Women ARISE (Access Rights Investment Security Equity), women comprising 50 percent of the speakers at the plenaries, daily opening sessions that set the tone and agenda of the day's panels and meetings, including one on gender violence as both a cause and a consequence of HIV. While the gender of a speaker might seem to offer merely a superficial solution in eradicating a disease, it reflected a major step forward in demonstrating that women are just as much the go-to experts about HIV/AIDS as men.

Alongside these plenary speakers, attendees also became used to the frequent spottings of “sheroes” such as the chair of the President's Advisory Commission on HIV/AIDS Helene Gayle, M.D., M.P.H., The Other City’s executive producer Johnson and director Susan Koch, actress activist Sheryl Lee Ralph, singer Annie Lennox and California congresswoman Barbara Lee. These are some of the many outspoken female champions in a fight that often attacks the defenseless and silent.