Neither Villain nor Victim: Empowerment and Agency among Women Substance Abusers
Neither Villain nor Victim: Empowerment and Agency among Women Substance Abusers
edited by Tammy Anderson contributions by Alison Gray, Margaret Kelley, Margaret Malloch, Stephanie Hartwell, Michele Tracy Berger, Cate Greibel, Phyllis Coontz, Carol Tracy, Elizabeth Ettore, Tammy Anderson, Christopher Mullins, Ira Sommers, Deborah Baskin, Yasmina Katsulis, Kim Blankenship and Christine Saum
Rutgers University Press, 2008 Cloth: 978-0-8135-4208-9 | Paper: 978-0-8135-4209-6 | eISBN: 978-0-8135-8119-4 (ePub) | eISBN: 978-0-8135-4463-2 (PDF) Library of Congress Classification HV4999.W65N45 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 362.29082
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Female drug addicts are often stereotyped either as promiscuous, lazy, and selfish, or as weak, scared, and trapped into addiction. These depictions typify the "pathology and powerlessness" narrative that has historically characterized popular and academic conversations about female substance abusers. Neither Villain Nor Victim attempts to correct these polarizing perspectives by presenting a critical feminist analysis of the drug world. By shifting the discussion to one centered on women's agency and empowerment, this book reveals the complex experiences and social relationships of women addicts.
Essays explore a range of topics, including the many ways that women negotiate the illicit drug world, how former drug addicts manage the more intimate aspects of their lives as they try to achieve abstinence, how women tend to use intervention resources more positively than their male counterparts, and how society can improve its response to female substance abusers by moving away from social controls (such as the criminalization of prostitution) and rehabilitative programs that have been shown to fail women in the long term.
Advancing important new perspectives about the position of women in the drug world, this book is essential reading in courses on women and crime, feminist theory, and criminal justice.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Tammy Anderson is an associate professor in the University of Delaware's department of sociology and criminal justice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dimensions of women's power in the illicit drug economy / Tammy L. Anderson
Seeing women, power, and drugs through the lens of embodiment / Elizabeth Ettorre
Demonstrating a female-specific agency and empowerment in drug selling / R. Baskin and Ira Sommers
Negotiating the streets : women, power, and resistance in street-life social networks / Christopher W. Mullins
Women's agency in the context of drug use / Yasmina Katsulis and Kim M. Blankenship
Facilitating change for women? : exploring the role of therapeutic jurisprudence in drug court / Christine A. Saum and Allison R. Gray
Negotiating gender for couples in methadone maintenance treatment / Margaret Kelley
A spoonful of sugar? : treating women in prison / Margaret S. Malloch
More of a danger to myself : community reentry of dually diagnosed females involved with the criminal justice system / Stephanie W. Hartwell
"Hustling" to save women's lives : empowerment strategies of recovering HIV-positive women / Michelle Tracy Berger
Drug use, prostitution, and globalization : a modest proposal for rethinking policy / Phyllis Coontz and Cate Greibel