A Critical Examination of Online News Media Representations of Bisexual Women Who Use Cannabis

ABSTRACTIn spring 2015, Robinson's article entitled, “The role of anxiety in bisexual women's use of cannabis in Canada,” was published in Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, presenting findings from a mixed-methods study of bisexual women's cannabis use. The study found that 33.6% of bisexual women in the province of Ontario, Canada, had used cannabis in the past year; 5 times greater than that for Canadian women in general (Bauer et al., 2010; Trocki et al., 2009). Robinson (2015) explored possible causes for this pattern, and found that bisexual women report using cannabis to cope with anxiety, pain, stress, and biphobia. In the weeks after Robinson's (2015) study was published, Samantha Allen (2015) interviewed her about the findings. On May 4, 2015, Allen published an article in The Daily Beast entitled “Why do bi women smoke so much weed?” Soon other online news media were publishing stories referencing Robinson's (2015) findings, with most sources picking up the story from Allen'...