Making gender visible in Latin American contexts of drug abuse

• In Event: Innovación para la Inclusión Social

Abstract

The incorporation of a gender perspective in an investigation of a social space may increase our understanding of the risk behaviors and care practices of sexualized users of drugs. Gender inequalities in politics, employment, and health generate health inequalities that affect girls and women.
Drug use or abuse is a constitutive part of how people “do gender” and develop their male or female identity, in a conventional or non-conventional manner, through their experiences with different drugs. Different elements related to gender identity construction have been reported influence drug consumption and other risky behaviors. Over the past decade, consumption of freebase cocaine in Argentina has been investigated among males but not females, who often consume it in a strongly masculinized context of exclusion and poverty.
This qualitative study focuses on the complexity of relationships between gender identity and the use of drugs, investigating freebase cocaine. In-depth interviews were conducted with female consumers. Our results reveal the different ways in which female identity is constructed in the context of social vulnerability in which freebase cocaine is consumed. We identify ways of doing gender and feeling like a woman in a man’s world that are associated with a higher risk of violence and exclusion for being female.
A research like this can help policy makers to think more accurate drug use prevention initiatives and health promotion interventions, taking into account the construction of gender identities.

Author

• Nuria Romo-Avilés, Universidad de Granada