BACKGROUND:
The consumption of alcohol and/or other drugs by women is permeated by moral stigmas that reinforce gender inequalities, especially when associated with motherhood and situations of social vulnerability1. Understanding these experiences requires examining how norms and power discourses act on the female body, producing control and exclusion, but also resistance and reinvention. This study aims to reflect on the crossings2 of gender in the experiences of women who consume alcohol and/or other drugs.

METHODS:
This is a theoretical-reflective study grounded in the theoretical framework of Institutional Analysis Socioanalytic3 and in contemporary feminist perspectives. The analysis was built from a literature review and reflections derived from a Collective Health master’s research, articulating concepts and experiences to understand how institutions and care practices shape the relationships of women who consume alcohol and/or other drugs.

RESULTS:
The reflection showed that the female body has been historically associated with purity, care, motherhood and forms of control, and that rupturing these social expectations generates guilt and stigmatization. However, forms of resistance emerge, in which women construct new meanings about consumption, care and their own existence, challenging hegemonic discourses and moralizing practices.

CONCLUSIONS:
Understanding alcohol and/or other drug consumption among women requires moving beyond punitive and normative perspectives, recognizing them as subjects of rights and as holders of knowledge about themselves. The study points to the urgency of health policies and care practices that value listening, autonomy and the singularity of women in their processes of reconstruction and resistance.