Playing the Game: A Qualitative Exploration of the Female Experience in a Hypermasculine Policing Environment

• Author: Timothy C. Brown,Julie M. Baldwin,Rick Dierenfeldt,Steven McCain
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/1098611119883423
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Police Quarterly
Playing the Game:
2020, Vol. 23(2) 143–173
! The Author(s) 2019
A Qualitative
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1098611119883423
Exploration of the
journals.sagepub.com/home/pqx
Female Experience
in a Hypermasculine
Policing Environment
Timothy C. Brown1
,
Julie M. Baldwin2, Rick Dierenfeldt3,
and Steven McCain4
Abstract
Domestically and globally females continue to be underrepresented in policing,
despite their greater likelihood of advancing themselves through higher education,
driving organizational change, and being less likely to use excessive force or be
named in civil litigation than their male counterparts. Extant research indicates
that women may be effectively gated from policing by a subculture that aggrandizes
characteristics consistent with the crime-fighting paradigm. Using qualitative data
from in-depth interviews with female officers, this study investigates the female
officer experience of police subculture in terms of masculinity, gender disparities,
and sexualized activities. To understand the perceived environment of the
department and contextualize it within the literature, the dominance of masculine
personality traits and gender disparities within the department are first explored to
determine whether a hypermasculine subculture was present. Then, female officers’
1San Diego State University, CA, USA
2American University, Washington, DC, USA
3University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, TN, USA
4University of Arkansas at Little Rock, AR, USA
Corresponding Author:
Timothy C. Brown, Department of Sociology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San
Diego, CA 92182, USA.
Email: Tbrown3@sdsu.edu

---

144
Police Quarterly 23(2)
definitions of sexual harassment, their roles in these activities, and their motivations
for participation were examined.
Keywords
females and policing, police subculture, sexual harassment
Introduction
Policing continues to experience an underrepresentation of females among its
officers, despite factors such as law enforcement’s existence for more than a
century (Bell, 1982; Schulz, 1995) and women entering municipal departments
in 1908 (Horne, 2006). Women comprise almost half (at least 46% since 1994)
of the United States labor force (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.), but
continue to represent only approximately 10% of all law enforcement officers
(Langston, 2010; Sullivan, 2009; U.S. Department of Justice, 2018). Recent
estimates indicate that female officers are a minority in all levels of law
enforcement, with some variation. Specifically, females account for 16%
of federal officers, 11% to 12% of local officers (police and sheriff, respec-
tively), and 6% of state agency officers (Hickman & Reaves, 2006a,
2006b; Reaves, 2012).
This significant disparity is interesting given that female officers, in compar-
ison to males, are more likely to advance themselves through higher education
and drive organizational change in terms of the adoption of community policing
(Orrick, 2008). They are also less likely to use excessive force or be named in civil
litigation (Schuck, 2017). Low recruitment, retention, and promotion of female
officers may, in part, be related to career–family conflict stemming from shift-
work, low family support, childcare issues, and noncompetitive benefits
(Cordner & Cordner, 2011; Cowan & Bochantin, 2009; Lonsway, 2007;
Schuck, 2014; Wells & Alt, 2005); however, a large body of research indicates
that women may be effectively gated from careers in policing by a subculture
that aggrandizes characteristics consistent with the crime-fighting paradigm,
such as masculinity, physicality, and aggression (Chan, 1996; Franklin, 2005;
Miller, 1999).
Extant literature has described how women have traditionally used male-
oriented techniques or adopted masculine behaviors or scripts as a strategy to
excel in male-dominated workplace environments (Davies-Netzley, 1998; Furia,
2010; Hunt, 1984; Martin, 1994). These strategies are essential to their survival
since women entering male-dominated domains, such as policing, are implicitly
expected to accept work role definitions and behavioral scripts, which pattern
interactions that were designed for and by men (Martin, 1999). This places many
women in a state of role conflict, as lacking the adoption of masculine norms

---

Brown et al.
145
leads to dismissal, while the adoption of them could lead to subsequent backlash
from male colleagues (Ballakrishnen, Fielding-Singh, & Magliozzi, 2019).
An element of the masculine police subculture is a hypersexuality, evidenced
by crude jokes, labeling, displays of genitalia and sex aids, nonconsensual
sexual touching, and quid pro quo sexual harassment (Dowler & Arai, 2008;
Haarr & Morash, 2013; Hassell & Brandl, 2009; Martin & Jurik, 1996).
Literature frequently describes police subculture and associated sexualized
behaviors as being predicated on the victimization of women (Franklin,
2005; Hunt, 1990; Prokos & Padavic, 2002). Recently, a study of a large
urban agency found contrasting results revealing that female officers frequent-
ly engaged in gender harassment through telling sexualized jokes or stories
while on duty, often as a strategy for fitting into the subculture (Lonsway,
Paynich, & Hall, 2013).
The degree of participation in sexualized behaviors, and perhaps more impor-
tantly the motivations for engaging in such activities, by women employed by
other police agencies remains underexplored. Specifically, the literature is under-
developed as it relates to which behaviors female officers distinguish as sexual
harassment, their participation in such activities, and the extent that participa-
tion is motivated by (a) an attempt to tolerate or conform to a hypermasculine
culture (Haarr & Morash, 2013; Martin, 1979; Prokos & Padavic, 2002) or (b)
and their self-selection into a subculture that mirrors their own values and
characteristics (Raganella & White, 2004). Regarding motivations, the former
indicates women continue to fight and sacrifice for a place in a profession that
undervalues and discourages their involvement, while the latter suggests that
women’s stake in police subculture is approaching a crossroads.
Therefore, this study investigates the female officer experience of police
subculture in terms of masculinity, gender disparities, and sexualized activities,
as well as their effects on our female respondents, both personally and pro-
fessionally. To understand the perceived environment of the department and
contextualize it within the literature, the dominance of masculine personality
traits and gender disparities within the department are first explored to deter-
mine whether a hypermasculine subculture is operating within the work
environment, and how that culture impacts the workplace and those in it.
This study then investigates the female officers’ perceptions of how the hyper-
masculine subculture impacts possible gender disparities in the profession and
their own experiences navigating the workplace. Next, female officers’ defini-
tions of sexual harassment, their roles in these activities, and their motivations
for participation are explored. To do so, qualitative data from in-depth inter-
views with female officers in a large Southeastern police department are ana-
lyzed. The data allow for a rich examination of these areas and inherent
nuances as the study design is qualitative in nature and grounded in the
extant literature, which is subsequently described.

---

146
Police Quarterly 23(2)
Literature Review
Gender in the Crime-Fighting Paradigm and Police Subculture
Gender operates within organizations through the development of gender-based
divisions in social structure, identity, and perception (Acker, 1990; Scott, 1986).
The perceptions and behaviors of personnel are, therefore, critical toward the
construction and operation of gender within an organization, and law enforce-
ment agencies are not immune from this logic. As public organizations, their
cultural constructions—including those associated with gender—may be
expected to exhibit a level of dependence on those maintained and displayed
by larger society (Herbert, 1998). Extant literature, however, has consistently
demonstrated the degree to which police are insulated from society (Crank &
Langworthy, 1992; Katz, 2001; Waddington, 1999). Police agencies and oper-
ations are developed in accordance with classic organizational or institutional
theory, lending themselves to control by the political class (Angell, 1971; Katz,
2001). As a consequence, police agencies engage in the construction of symbolic
images and self-fulfilling prophecies, influenced by the dangers of police work
and the need to appease the expectations of governing bodies (Chan, 1996;
Waddington, 1999).
In particular, the image of police as crime fighters facilitates the development
and persistence of policing myths among officers and administrators, while
legitimizing policing in agreement with an idealized conceptualization proffered
by politicians (Crank & Langworthy, 1992; Herbert, 1998; Katz, 2001).
Maintaining this image further requires aggrandizement of certain individual
characteristics that the ideal officer is expected to embody (Franklin, 2005;
Herbert, 1998). Within the crime-fighting paradigm, masculinity, physical prow-
ess and aggression, and courage are considered indicators of competence (Hunt,
1990; Prokos & Padavic, 2002). In turn, this crime-fighting paradigm promoted
the development of a distinct subgroup popularly known as “police subculture”
(Chan,...