Embodiment, Emotions and Female Drug Use

Abstract

Thus far in this book we have built up a feminist embodiment approach to drugs and looked at some of the different types of embodiment that are on offer to drug-using women. Wanting to revision, we let go of how we have traditionally seen women and drug use and attempted to construct new perceptions of women’s drug-using bodies. I have maintained this type of focus to challenge some of the hurtful, biased and obsolete images of and approaches to women drug users that are in circulation at the moment, and to construct new understandings which are positive and empowering rather than moralistic and destructive. In doing so, I have attempted to construct images and representations that are grounded in the bodies of real drug-using women, no matter how these female bodies differ from one another in terms of race, ethnicity, class, age, ability, and so on.

The study of female mass movements calls attention to female consciousness. It is possible to examine a range of motivations in the everyday lives of women that might lead them collectively in pursuit of goals they could not attain as individuals. Women’s movements follow common patterns: they focus on consumer and peace issues and they oppose outside aggressors. Accepting and enforcing the division of labour by sex, therefore, can bring women into conflict with authorities. Women may even attack their rulers when food prices rise too high for suspicious reasons, when sexual harassment brings women’s dignity into question, or when the community of women appears to be under attack … A sense of community that emerges from shared routines binds women to one another within their class and within their neighborhoods … Physical proximity — such as occurs in plazas, wash houses, markets, church entries, beauty parlors and even female jails — contributes to the power of female community. These loose networks facilitate the tight bonds that exhibit their strength in times of collective action.

Temma Kaplan (1982: 57)