This is a discussion paper prepared for the Satellite Symposium, "Putting Third First - Critical Legal Issues and HIV/AIDS". The paper makes a fundamental assumption that if efforts to change sexual behaviour is at the core of reducing HIV infection and if efforts to change sexual behaviour require changes in the social and economic power relations in society, then our ability to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic is inextricably linked to our ability to address gender inequality at all levels. It argues that both human rights and the law can play an important, if limited, role within a wider set of national and international strategies. Written from the perspective and experience of a gender, rather than an AIDS, legal activist, it seeks to address the intersection of legal activism on gender equality and HIV/AIDS by providing a broad understanding of the issues (adapted from author).