Why Female Potheads Still Feel Ashamed

[Dusty Bake Activate]

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/14/why_female_potheads_still_feel_ashamed/

I’ve been smoking pot on and off since I was about 17. Throughout this time — we’re talking 25 years— I believe I bought my own pot once. I have always relied on the men in my life to provide it for me. When I look back at my history with marijuana, I simply have no connection to the weed in my life and where it comes from (except for that boyfriend who filled two of our small closets with plants in 1997). Along with relying on men for it, I also don’t discuss smoking with girlfriends. I wouldn’t meet up with another woman to get high the way I would, say, for a glass of shiraz. There’s probably only been a handful of times in the past 10 years have I gotten high with a group of women to simply relax.

Most of the men I know, on the other hand, get high. They discuss the product. They have multiple sources. They invest in smokeless inhalation devices like the Volcano and the portable Wispr. They speak about their weed machines like they’d talk about cars. Or computers. Or the way my Uncle Joe used to obsess over his ham radios in the 1970s. And while the country has more or less embraced the stoner way of life — new data shows that more Americans are getting high now than in previous years — the stigma around women smoking pot is still pretty black and white.

If you take a look at marijuana gender data, you’d think most women are following the Adam Ant rule of thumb — Don’t drink, don’t smoke. In Colorado, for example, 68 percent of medical marijuana registrants are males and in Arizona, 73 percent of approved applicants are men. According to the annual National Survey on Drug Use, conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, almost twice as many men smoke than women (9.6 percent of men vs. 5 percent of women).

Here’s the thing about women and weed: Women generally don’t want to discuss their habit out of fear of being judged or compared to a cartoon. Think Milla Jovovich’s stoner character in “Dazed and Confused” — she had no lines whatsoever and merely stared off into space, and, okay, she painted a Gene Simmons face on that statue. Worse, if you’re a mother, you keep your weed habit secret because you don’t want to be seen as a negligent parent.

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Because when women unwind, we have been told that drinking should be our method of choice — Kathie Lee and Hoda still drink wine at 10 a.m., and no one balks. But just last year the entire Internet almost had a collective heart attack when “Motherland” author Amy Sohn wrote about her drugging escapades for The Awl in “The 40-Year-Old Reversion.” The first paragraph goes like this: “Once a month I get together with half a dozen moms from Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. We call ourselves Hookers, Sluts and Drug Addicts.” And this summer, a video of a group called the Marijuana Moms went viral after announcing they were “bringing glamour and exclusivity to marijuana use.” The Huffington Post filed the story under “Weird News.”

Though movies have portrayed men getting high in groups for decades (just this summer Seth Rogen and co. smoked their way through the apocalypse in “This Is The End”), there’s a complete lack of women who smoke weedin pop culture, as Ann Friedman points out in New York magazine: “There are a few depictions of women smoking at home as a way to blow off some steam and bond with each other. In ’9 to 5,’ a film released back in 1980, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton’s characters get stoned together and fantasize about how they will exact revenge on their boorish boss. The 2012 lady-bromance ‘For a Good Time Call’ features heroines who regularly smoke. But the examples are few and far between.”

“I generally think women are not willing to take the risk of bringing up that subject because they’ll be judged by that other person,” says Sabrina Fendrick of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Women’s Alliance. “It’s also a social fear of being judged by other women and other men as well. There’s a connotation with marijuana, that lazy stoner attitude, and women already have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good.”

Even in writing this article I experienced stoner stigma when a friend suggested I interview someone who also happens to be a daily smoker. “But you can’t tell her I told you to contact her,” my friend said. “I don’t want her to think that I called her a pothead.”

This is exactly why a 43-year-old friend of mine, and a mom of two young boys, won’t discuss her weed smoking with other women. “I don’t want to be judged,” she says. “I think in general women are supposed to be more responsible and something about it is irresponsible.” Another mom who responded to me on Twitter echoed those sentiments, saying that she doesn’t feel judged by family and friends, but does feel judged by the public around “racial and gender components.” Same goes for a 23-year-old who told me that she doesn’t talk about smoking “even among stoner friends.”

Most women I reached out to for this article didn’t want to speak openly about their habits even anonymously. One exception was a friend who says she doesn’t feel judged — except around her family. “There is a stigma that is still there and some ignorance as to the addictive quality.” But I tend to think her candor stems from one reason: she lives in Southern California.

Perhaps, eventually, the broader acceptance of smoking weed will spread to women. Two recent examples: Lady Gaga and Rihanna both dressed up as bedazzled cannabis queens last year for Halloween. (Rihanna dressed as a weed bride with a bouquet of bud. Lady Gaga covered her nipples with sativa leaf nipple pasties.) And there’s an opportunity for women to create their own statement about marijuana in the future without feeling so, ahem, paranoid. I saw some hope after a conversation with my 21-year-old cousin, a senior at Oberlin, who says most of her girlfriends freely smoke weed. “People think it’s cool if girls smoke weed.” And then as an afterthought she added, “It might also be because of my environment.”

 

[Uncle Kingpin]

Why female potheads dont buy their own weed but feel no shame bumming off men should be the real question

 

[Brofato]

Weird, I know girls who won't shut the fukk up about it. I have never met one girl who has been ashamed of smoking weed if they did it.

People think it’s cool if girls smoke weed

And that's just false. If you like weed, that's cool and all but if you're one of those people who won't shut up then you're just lame as hell.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Weird, I know girls who won't shut the fukk up about it. I have never met one girl who has been ashamed of smoking weed if they did it.



And that's just false. If you like weed, that's cool and all but if you're one of those people who won't shut up then you're just lame as hell.

Yeah but that's mostly young college-aged chicks or hood chicks though. Professional women in their careers, old women, responsible mothers, I think there is more of a stigma associated with it then males.

 

[Brofato]

Yeah but that's mostly young college-aged chicks or hood chicks though. Professional women in their careers, old women, responsible mothers, I think there is more of a stigma associated with it then males.

I don't think so at all. The men that are in that same category would most likely have the same stigma. You don't really see professional people as ones to smoke. I would actually expect old women to and responsible mothers could be the same as responsible fathers.

Edit: That stigma would most likely be related to them as parents, professionals, etc. and not necessarily their gender

The people in the comments of that article seem just as confused as I am about her shame. Seems she's just projecting onto all women.

 

[Spoonz]

the female potheads i know don't act ashamed of it....

 

[Dirty_Jerz]

the women i know who smoke keep it on the low not because they are ashamed but because you aint about to hit their blunt

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

I don't think so at all. The men that are in that same category would most likely have the same stigma. You don't really see professional people as ones to smoke. I would actually expect old women to and responsible mothers could be the same as responsible fathers.

The people in the comments of that article seem just as confused as I am about her shame. Seems she's just projecting onto all women.

I agree that there is stigma regarding weed when it comes to older people in their careers, but I think it is greater with women. I know engineers at an old job who smoked trees. They kept it on the low, but they still discussed it and joked about it amongst each other and even copped at the workplace. You almost never hear that among professional women in the workplace and don't know they smoke until you end up at a social setting with them and catch them with glazed red eyes.

 

[Flight]

I'm in college & most of the chicks I know brag about smoking all the time. One chick almost always starts up a conversation about her smoking..I had to let her know it's not my thing.

 

[Poh SIti Dawn]

I'd rather she smoke than drink, but I'd rather she'd do neither so that if I wanted to stop I could do it and she'd be able to support me.

 

[Dooby]

Yeah but that's mostly young college-aged chicks or hood chicks though. Professional women in their careers, old women, responsible mothers, I think there is more of a stigma associated with it then males.

If that's the situation that's a stigma that transcends a particular gender...

A professional man in his career, old men and responsible fathers will be demonized for smoking weed too. Get outta here with this female sympathizing agenda breh.

 

[Taadow]

smoke-shaming thread.

 

[Brofato]

I agree that there is stigma regarding weed when it comes to older people in their careers, but I think it is greater with women. I know engineers at an old job who smoked trees. They kept it on the low, but they still discussed it and joked about it amongst each other and even copped at the workplace. You almost never hear that among professional women in the workplace and don't know they smoke until you end up at a social setting with them and catch them with glazed red eyes.

Yeah, I clarified in my edit. Dooby restated. That seems like they became friends more than discussing it at a professional level.

 

[Ronnie Lott]

I don't fucc with wed head bytches. A lot ofthese broads don't be up on their hygeine as much as they should. I used to fukk with a chick that would blaze all the time and I seriously had to cut the bytch off.

Plus, many weedhead bytches at some point have turned a trick to get some weed. Alot of these broads be fukkin their weedman or suckin the nikka off for dub sacks. Real talk brehs

 

[Kalik]

The females I know.... only 1 is a professional. The rest is around-the-way chicks