WOMEN'S GENDER PERFORMANCES AND CULTURAL HETEROGENEITY IN THE ILLEGAL DRUG ECONOMY

• Date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12068
• Published date: 01 May 2015
• Author: HEIDI GRUNDETJERN

WOMEN’S GENDER PERFORMANCES AND

CULTURAL HETEROGENEITY IN THE ILLEGAL

DRUG ECONOMY∗

HEIDI GRUNDETJERN

Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo

KEYWORDS: female drug dealers, doing gender, cultural heterogeneity, street culture

Based on interviews with 32 female drug dealers in Norway, this study investi-

gates different gender performances among women situated in the illegal hard drug

economy—a context with strong gendered “rules of the game.” Using grounded the-

ory methods, I have identified four predominant patterns in which women enact their

gendered identities being part of the drug economy: performing emphasized femininity

in the context of marginalization; performing street masculinity; employing a feminine

business model; and last, flexible use of cultural repertoires. The findings suggest that

different gender performances among dealers are rooted in variations in the cultural

tool kits they have at their disposal. I find that the content of women’s cultural tool kits

varied with three sociodemographic factors: 1) age, 2) time of entr´

ee to the drug econ-

omy, and 3) educational and employment history. Combined, these influenced the type

of gender performances the dealers tended to use as well as their position in the drug

market hierarchy. The research suggests that those dealers using cultural repertoires

flexibly are the most successful as they skillfully employed the model best suited for the

context they were in.

Illegal drug dealing is often described as male dominated (Adler, 1993; Maher, 1997).

In the hard drug economy, not only do men outnumber women but also they construct

and display a specific type of exaggerated “street masculinity” that values violence, retali-

ation, and sexual prowess (Mullins, 2006). Men’s preference not to work with women has

been famously identified as “institutional sexism” within criminal enterprises (Steffens-

meier, 1983; Steffensmeier and Terry, 1986). Women in the drug economy, as with female

offenders more generally, face additional stigmatization in that they are judged as failing

to live up to conventional society’s gendered expectations of being a “good” woman—

and especially a good mother (Steffensmeier and Allan, 1996)—which contributes to their

double deviance (Swart, 1991).

That it is structured by gender does not imply the illegal drug economy exists in a cul-

tural vacuum. Like most social fields, it is culturally heterogeneous, allowing for a variety

of cultural strategies by people in that field (Harding, 2010). Indeed, research on diverse

∗I would like to thank Jody Miller for all of her valuable help and guidance, as well as Sveinung

Sandberg and Heith Copes for their support and helpful comments. I am also grateful to Rose-

mary Gartner and the four anonymous reviewers whose suggestions helped significantly improve

the article from the first draft. Direct correspondence to Heidi Grundetjern, Department of So-

ciology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Box 1096, Blindern, Oslo N-0317, Norway

(e-mail: heidi.grundetjern@sosgeo.uio.no).

C2015 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12068

CRIMINOLOGY Volume 53 Number 2 253–279 2015 253

254 GRUNDETJERN

criminal enterprises has shown how some women can create niches for themselves to op-

erate successfully in male-dominated criminal settings (e.g., Miller, 1998; Steffensmeier,

Schwartz, and Roche, 2013; Zhang, Chin, and Miller, 2007). Nonetheless, in a highly gen-

dered criminal environment, such as the drug economy, the enactment of gender becomes

crucial.

Based on interviews with 32 female drug dealers in Norway, I investigate different ways

female drug dealers “do gender” (West and Zimmerman, 1987) in response to the gen-

der constraints in the drug economy. Although many scholars have used the doing gen-

der framework in their research on criminals (e.g., Copes and Hochstetler, 2003; Miller,

1998, 2001; Messerschmidt, 2011; Mullins, Wright, and Jacobs, 2004), we know little about

the factors influencing variations in gender performances among criminals. To under-

stand the circumstances under which different gender performances take place, this study

unites the doing gender framework (West and Zimmerman, 1987) with complex views of

culture (e.g., Harding, 2010; Small, Harding, and Lamont, 2010; Lindegaard, Miller, and

Reynald, 2013). Specifically, I investigate how different gender performances among fe-

male drug dealers are rooted in variations in their cultural “tool kits” (Swidler, 1986),

which themselves appear to be shaped by several sociodemographic factors, including

age, time of entr´

ee into the drug economy, and educational and employment history. I

investigate how these factors come into play when intersecting with structural constraints

of the drug economy, leading to specific patterns of gender performances.

This study offers insights for criminological theorizing on how cultural dispositions

shape female drug dealers’ gender performances. Importantly, the findings help to illu-

minate women’s positions in the drug economy by offering a nuanced picture of their

gender performances, backgrounds, and positions in the drug market hierarchy. More

broadly, this study speaks to the significance of cultural heterogeneity—as a characteris-

tic of certain social fields (Harding, 2010)—in criminological theorizing by suggesting that

culture is a key factor in differentiating both gender performances and success in criminal

enterprises. Furthermore, I argue that the complexities of gender performances can only

be fully understood by acknowledging cultural heterogeneity in the analysis of criminal

environments.

CONCEPTUALIZING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

CULTURE AND CRIME

Debates over offenders’ allegiance to a criminal subculture versus conventional culture

are commonplace in studies of crime and delinquency. Early subcultural theorists, such

as Cohen (1955) and Miller (1958), argued that subcultures reject the values of conven-

tional society for their own set of values. Violence and honor are often identified as parts

of such subcultures (Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967). More recently, Anderson (1999) and

Bourgois (2003) have been influential in reviving the subcultural perspective. Anderson

(1999: 33) described the “code of the street,” which he conceptualized as “a set of in-

formal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly violence.” He argued

that a code of the street emerges as a response to being in a disadvantaged structural posi-

tion. Others have challenged the subcultural perspective. For example, Sykes and Matza’s

(1957) neutralization theory maintained that offenders tend to neutralize the guilt of of-

fending by appealing to the values of conventional society. They argued that law breakers