Gender, trust and business: women drug dealers in the illicit economy

The vast majority of research on drug dealers focuses on men, while most studies on women in the drug economy focus on subordinated drug users. We know very little about attributes or skills required for successful drug dealing may apply primarily to male dealers, while allegedly female attributes regarded by men as handicapping women may be irrelevant or even valuable resources. This in-depth, observational study of successful women drug dealers in Melbourne indicates that skills and orientations associated with familial relations play a key part in the most sensitive aspects of such business. Conversely, ruthlessness and violence are comparatively peripheral, even though the women demonstrated that these were well within their repertoires of action.