Exploring Gendered Environments in Policing: Workplace Incivilities and Fit Perceptions in Men and Women Officers

• Date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Samantha S. Clinkinbeard,Rachael M. Rief
• DOI: 10.1177/1098611120917942
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Exploring Gendered

Environments in

Policing: Workplace

Incivilities and Fit

Perceptions in Men

and Women Officers

Rachael M. Rief

1

and

Samantha S. Clinkinbeard

1

Abstract

Research indicates that women are still underrepresented in policing and that police

culture is not fully accepting of its sisters in blue. As police organizations strive

toward building an inclusive workforce, we must understand how women, already

in the field, view their place and experiences within their jobs, organizations, and

workgroups. Thus, in the current research, we use a comparative sample (n¼832)

of male and female officers to examine perceptions of fit in the job, organization, and

workgroup, and how these perceptions relate to reports of workplace incivilities.

Findings indicate that women "fit in"with the job and the broader agency, but they are

less likely than men to feel they belong within their workgroup. This relationship was

partially mediated by workplace incivilities, indicating that women’s experience of

subtle forms of discrimination partially explains their lower levels of fit in their

workgroup.

Keywords

women, policing, fit, discrimination, police culture

1

University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

Corresponding Author:

Rachael M. Rief, UNO Campus, 6001 Dodge Street, 218 CPACS, Omaha, NE 68182, United States.

Email: rrief@unomaha.edu

Police Quarterly

2020, Vol. 23(4) 427–450

!The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1098611120917942

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In general, the most satisfied workers tend to make the best workers (Oswald

et al., 2015; Saks & Ashforth, 1997). The list of factors that contribute to job

satisfaction is long. Important to that list is the extent to which employees feel

that they belong to, match, or fit with their career field, coworkers, and orga-

nization (Gabriel et al., 2014; Saks & Ashforth, 1997). Those who feel a con-

nection and see a match between their skills and the job are more likely to stick

around, work hard, and recommend the job to others (Cable & Judge, 1996;

Dawley et al., 2010; Gabriel et al., 2014). As in any other career field, this idea is

true in policing. The concept of fit may be especially important in policing,

however, as some groups, such as women and people of color, have historically

been left out and had to fight their way in, against resistance. When a group has

been historically excluded, establishing fit may take more effort and resilience

because structures and cultures were not developed with them in mind. In the

current article, we examine (a) the extent to which women police officers per-

ceive that they fit in the environmental context of policing, (b) the extent to

which their perceptions align (or not) with those of their male counterparts, and

(c) the extent to which artifacts of the traditional (exclusionary) structure and

culture explain the relationship between gender and environmental fit percep-

tions. We argue that officers’ perceptions of fit, and factors that influence it, are

important to understand to improve the retention of current officers and recruit-

ment of new ones. Further, the existence of gender differences may signal areas

in need of attention, particularly when it comes to improving the representation

and integration of women in the historically male-dominated field of policing.

Policing started as a career for men, but significant social and political change

allowed women to break into the field. Because of extended provisions to the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 and various lawsuit-driven consent decrees, policing

experienced multiple periods of growth in the representation of women during

the latter part of the 20th century (Archbold & Schulz, 2012). The number of

women in the field drastically increased from about the 1980s to 1990s; however,

since the early 2000s, growth has stalled (Cordner & Cordner, 2011; Kringen,

2014; Lonsway et al., 2003). Women represent about 47% of the total U.S. labor

force (United States Department of Labor, 2017) but only 12% to 13% of the

U.S. police population (Hyland & Davis, 2019; United States Department of

Justice, 2019). Representation is even lower for women of color. Women rep-

resented 12% of law enforcement in 2016, but only 2% of all officers were

Hispanic females, and only 3% were Black females (Hyland & Davis, 2019).

Further, although research on retention is lacking, that which does exist indi-

cates that even when they do join, women are often retained at lower rates than

men (Doerner, 1995; Felkenes et al., 1993).

Women’s stunted entry and retention may be attributed to a variety of inter-

nal and external factors, including gendered processes, gender socialization, and

masculine police subcultures (Brown, 2007; Brown, Fleming, et al., 2019;

Corsianos, 2009; Garcia, 2003; Morash & Haarr, 2012). The masculine

428 Police Quarterly 23(4)