Mulheres e medicalização social: compreensões sobre a colonização de corpos negros

Abstract

The increasing use of psychotropic drugs in Brazil reveals a phenomenon that affects various layers of the population but is more pronounced among women with Common Mental Disorders, conditions intrinsically associated with living conditions such as domestic overload and social vulnerability, issues that are present in higher percentages among the Black population in Brazil. This study aims to investigate the life stories and experiences of Black women from a quilombo community in the backlands of Bahia who use or have used psychotropic drugs. This research was done from the perspective of Black and anti-colonial feminism, using a qualitative method that uses women's narratives to research from the voice of those who live this experience. The analyses were carried out based on the axes: determinants associated with prescriptions, effects of medication use, and resistance strategies. The results indicate living conditions, work overload, colonial wounds, and domestic violence as motivators associated with prescriptions. Among the effects of medication use are improved sleep quality, but also apathy, lack of motivation, and amnesia. Collectivity, solidarity among women, and ancestral knowledge, such as the use of herbs, are presented as resistance strategies. We conclude that medicalization presents itself as a mask for the inequities faced by quilombola women in rural contexts and brings us the need to rethink public care policies for women that consider their singularities and territorialities.