Drugs and gender: A contradictory project in interviews with socially integrated men and women
who use drugs
Engelsk titel: Drugs and gender: A contradictory project in interviews with socially integrated men and women
who use drugs
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Författare:
Rödner Sznitman S
Email: sharon.rodner@sorad.su.se
Språk: Eng
Antal referenser: 57
Dokumenttyp:
Artikel
UI-nummer: 07073832
Sammanfattning
This article investigates how 44 selfdefined
drug users in the Stockholm
area talk about differences in male and
female drug use. The analysis shows
that there is a general uneasiness
among the informants regarding
gendered drug taking. Ambivalence
thus arises when the informants
are called upon to articulate issues
regarding gender and drugs. On the
other hand, it is evident that gender
is a meaningful construct for the
informants’ understanding of drug
use. The informants assign different
characteristics to men and women and
they articulate a gendered norm system
in relation to drug taking. The relevant
norms, demanding more control of
female than male drug users, were
invoked by both the men and the women
interviewed.
Although gender was a useful
construct for making sense of drug
use, the informants lacked resources
for articulating their experiences and
points of view in relation to issues of
drugs and gender. As such gender and
its relationship to drug use constituted
ambivalent and contradictory themes
to talk about. In this regard, this study
highlights gender and drug use as
an arena in which there is currently no stable definition of the
situation.