It has been contended that women's participation in drug markets has had a significant impact on female involvement in non-drug crimes, especially such violent offenses as robbery and assault. Systemic violence in drug selling, however, may be spuriously related to other etiological factors in violence and crime commission, rather than a function of social processes unique to drug selling. This study compares violence within and apart from the context of drug dealing for 156 New York City female drug sellers who were the subjects of life history interviews. The findings suggest that violence among drug sellers, men and women, appears to reflect the concurrence of two processes: the self-selection of people who routinely use violence in their broader social and economic interactions, and the neighborhood itself, in which violence is taught, practiced and maintained as a way of negotiating the social realities of street and domestic life. Tables, references