Risky business: Gender, drug dealing and risk

Abstract

This article examines drug dealing as a business activity, contrasting the experiences of two male drug dealers and a female drug dealer and examining the unique roles that are assigned to both male and female dealers. The issues associated with these roles include risk, masculinity and criminality, visibility, violence and intimidation, networks and trust. What will be focussed upon in this article will be the themes of hegemonic masculinity, risk, and visibility. The contrasting experiences of male and female drug dealers demonstrated in this study show that this type of criminality is indeed affected by the gendered position of the different dealers. To negotiate masculinity in the world of drug dealing, for female dealers in particular, is argued to be problematic as this type of criminal activity is negotiated around ‘hegemonic masculinity’. Issues of risk are also examined and how these are affected by the gender of the dealer in question, as is visibility and how these things are negotiated by the female dealer to protect herself from the hegemonic masculine world she moves through.

• Drug dealers
• gender
• risk
• hegemonic masculinity

Notes

¹ It is recognised here that violence can be implicit and threatened as well as overt and physical. So, physical violence does not actually have to occur for this to be a problem for the female dealer. The implication or threat that it could and would if she did not conform is enough to make her feel anxious and unsafe.

² This is a slang northern English term for bother or hassle.