I viljan att göra det normala : en kritisk studie av genusperspektivet i missbrukarvården

Sammanfattning: The aim of this dissertation is to use intersectional analysis to investigate how gender is made in drug abuse treatment and to examine how the formation of gender interplays with the formation of sexuality, class and ethnicity. Central questions are: What gender(s) are to be shaped in druge abuse treatment? What happens to a gender perspective with emancipatory ambitions when it is incorporated into a normalizing practice such as social work? Quantitative methods are used to answer these questions. I conducted field work at two drug abuse treatment institutions: a compulsory institution for women and a voluntary institution which accepts both female and male clients but that in practice treats only men. The empirical material consists of participant observations and ninteen thematic and semi-structured interviews with the personnel at both institutions. My theoretical framework combines three theorists each of whom addresses tensions between gender, normalization and change. Butler's theory, in which gender is formed through acts, words and gestures, is my main point of departure for understanding the formation of gender. I also use Butler's theoretical insights in my investigation into how the formation of gender and sexuality interact with each other. Skegg's theories capture the interplay between gender and class. Hall's theory of the signification of dualism addresses the making of ethnicity. In my analysis, I illustrate how gender is made by being incorporated into the treatment ideology upon which the institutions rely. Gender and sexuality becomes part of the treatment and the normality the treatment aims to create. The personnel make use of their own gender to gain trust of the clients and they also understand women and men on staff as having complementary roles in conducting treatment. The personnel's conception of what women and men are like serves as basis for introducing distinctive elements of treatment according to wheter clients are women or men. They make gender in understanding men to be sexual subjects and by regulating and treating their sexuality. The female clients, on the other hand, are viewed either as traumatized sexual objects, or as masculine women who lack actual femininity. In treatment, the personnel make gender and class by engaging the women in beauty care and by learning them to run a houshold. At both institutions, the personnel's ambition is also to convey gender equality, but the organization of work, and the treatment ideologies make this difficult. The personnel tend insted to recreate gender inequality. The personnel continually violate their own conceptions of gender, implying that there are raptures in gender discourse that contribute to doing gender in emancipatory ways. However, the personnel also tend to counteract and make these raptures invisible. This maintains and recreates the gender discourse in question. There are som individueals among the staff who are critical of the gender discourse, but they most often express this criticism in interviews and not in the actual work at the institutions. This limits their impact on how gender is made.