Mulheres no tráfico de drogas: a criminalidade como estratégia de saída da invisibilidade social feminina

From the systemic discursive analysis (Falmagne, 2004) of interviews with two women with a past history of involvement in drug trafficking in slums in Rio de Janeiro, the present work has the goal of understanding the ways in which joining a traditional male criminal activity had represented to participants the possibility to differentiate themselves from women around them. As members of a socially marginalized group (of poor and usually black women), participating in drug trafficking had given these women a power that is often recognized as male property. Analyses show that the power as drug trafficker had been almost always exerted over other women. The distance from “common women” and the consequent approximation to the male world represented by drug trafficking had moved these women away (even if temporarily) from the social invisibility that characterizes women’s lives in urban peripheries. Key words: female criminality, invisibility, gender.