Sociology

Tagart Sobotka

The Enabling Mother? Examining Gender Bias in Attributions of Blame, Stigma, and Perceived Harm towards Parents of Opioid Users
2018–19 Survey Lab Project

Enabling is a topic that has received limited scholarly attention. Despite this, through interviews with 37 current and former opioid users in the Midwestern United States, I find that the concept is a common feature in stories about their substance use and recovery. Enabling was used to describe behaviors or actions that interviewees believed reduced the burden of using drugs, contributing to one’s addiction. Moreover, mothers were the most likely to be labeled as enablers by interviewees. While interviewees did often discuss having more frequent contact with their mothers than their fathers, I argue that gendered stereotypes and expectations influence the degree to which a particular behavior is seen as enabling substance use or not. As such, my project explores the extent to which behaviors (e.g., giving a known drug user money) are perceived to promote or hinder a person’s substance use and how the gender of the person engaging in these behaviors effects these perceptions.

 

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