Mar
02
2026
Risk and Resistance lecture
5:00 PM @ Stony Brook University
Book lecture as part of the Sir Run Run Shaw Lecture Series.
About the book
How did women come to be seen as ‘at-risk’ for HIV? In the early years of the AIDS crisis, scientific and public health experts questioned whether women were likely to contract HIV in significant numbers and rolled out a response that effectively excluded women. Against a linear narrative of scientific discovery and progress, Risk and Resistance shows that it was the work of feminist lawyers and activists who altered the legal and public health response to the AIDS epidemic. Feminist AIDS activists and their allies took to the streets, legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts to demand the recognition of women in the HIV response. Risk and Resistance recovers a key story in feminist legal history – one of strategy, struggle, and competing feminist visions for a just and healthy society. It offers a clear and compelling vision of how social movements have the capacity to transform science in the service of legal change.
About the author
Aziza Ahmed’s scholarship examines the intersection of law, politics, and science in the fields of constitutional law, criminal law, health law, and family law.
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Events
Mar
03
2026
Yale Workshop
12:10 PM @ Yale Law School
Book workshop sponsored by the Information Society Project. Open to the Yale Law School community only.
Apr
22
2026
How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS
1:15 PM @ Harvard Law School
Book Talk together with Prof. Glenn Cohen.
What others are saying
Public Health Law, Social Movements, and the Feminist Remaking of AIDS
March 2026 • Jotwell Health Law
by Prof. Maya Manian
“At a moment when public trust in expertise is failing, and public health crises are pitched battles, Risk and Resistance offers both historical insight and conceptual clarity. It is essential reading for anyone interested in how law, science, and social movements shape who is allowed to survive—and under what conditions.”
Being Counted: Women & the AIDS Epidemic
Professor Aziza Ahmed’s book documents the critical role that women played as activists for treatment and policy
April 2026 • The Record
by Sarah Awan Whelan
“Activists weren’t just challenging policy. They were challenging the way scientific knowledge was being produced. They understood that if women were excluded from research, their needs would continue to be ignored in treatment and policy.”
Risk and Resistance: How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS by Aziza Ahmed
October 2026 • Osgoode Hall Law Journal
by Kailey Tam
“Risk and Resistance successfully shows how law, science, and epidemiological claims are developed through contemporary political and economic contexts.”