Seeing and Doing Gender at Work: A Qualitative Analysis of Canadian Male and Female Police Officers

• Author: Sarah E. Murray
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1557085120914351
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085120914351

Feminist Criminology

2021, Vol. 16(1) 91 –109

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085120914351

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Article

Seeing and Doing Gender at

Work: A Qualitative Analysis

of Canadian Male and Female

Police Officers

Sarah E. Murray1

Abstract

This qualitative study examines the ways in which male and female police officers

view and enact gender in their workplace. Data were generated from in-depth

interviews with 20 active police officers working in a populous Canadian province.

Although most male officers deny gender differences and gender bias, female officers

describe experiences of workplace sexism and deploy adaptive strategies daily in their

workplaces to resist gender inequality. Both men and women describe a masculine-

coded ideal police officer and disparage the “old police culture” and “old boy’s club.”

Keywords

doing gender, women, police

Introduction

Policing has historically been an institution that is both dominated by men and con-

structed in such a way that favors and privileges masculine characteristics (Bevan &

MacKenzie, 2012; Chan et al., 2010; Messerschmidt, 1993; Prokos & Padavic, 2002).

Women therefore have been both physically and symbolically excluded from most

aspects of police work (Morash & Haarr, 2012; Prokos & Padavic, 2002; Rabe-Hemp,

2009). Acker (1990) argues that the gendering of organizations occurs primarily

through the division of labor, construction of gendered signs and symbols, and the

placement of barriers that appear gender-neutral but serve to exacerbate existing

inequalities. Acknowledging that gender is a system of power, hegemonic masculinity

1University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sarah E. Murray, Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, 1334 Watkins Hall,

Riverside, CA 92521, USA.

Email: sarah.murray@email.ucr.edu

914351FCXXXX10.1177/1557085120914351Feminist CriminologyMurray

research-article2020

92 Feminist Criminology 16(1)

sees one idealized form of masculinity privileged and those individuals who align with

the ideal receive the benefits of its power, while those who do not or cannot align with

the ideal are less able to gain power (Bevan & MacKenzie, 2012; Connell, 1987). Men

are constrained by gendered expectations of hegemonic masculinity in the workplace,

to conform male officers are expected to denigrate and exclude female officers

(Messerschmidt, 1993; Prokos & Padavic, 2002). Drawing on West and Zimmerman’s

(1987) “doing gender” approach, a female officer’s ability to do gender and do polic-

ing is constrained by cultural and structural factors. Some scholars suggest that female

officers are only able to be either women or police while at work, as the two identities

are incompatible (Martin, 1980). However, more recent studies find many female offi-

cers manage to do both simultaneously (Morash & Haarr, 2012; Rabe-Hemp, 2009).

What is missing is an in-depth analysis of both male and female police officers in a

Canadian context. A vast majority of the literature on gender and policing thus far

focuses on American police agencies, but less is known about gender inequalities in a

Canadian context. Therefore, this sample of Canadian officers offers a novel perspec-

tive on policing as a gendered institution outside of the United States and the United

Kingdom. First, how do officers see gender within a gendered organization? And sec-

ond, how do officers challenge gender inequalities in the workplace?

The sample consists of 10 male and 10 female police officers who represent three

different police agencies based in three different regions of the same Canadian prov-

ince. In addition to sampling by gender, I included a comparable number of senior

officers and lower ranking officers, which allow for multilayered analysis. I find that

most male officers engage in gender-blind sexism by failing to acknowledge inequal-

ity or difference, while both male and female officers describe a masculine-coded

ideal police officer, and that men and women describe the “old police culture” as toxic

and outdated. In enacting gender, female officers acknowledge the inequality in their

workplaces and use strategic adaptations to benefit themselves at work.

Police Agencies as Gendered Organizations

Acker (1990) describes a gendered organization as a place where “advantage and

disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity, are

patterned through and in terms of a distinction between male and female, masculine

and feminine” (p. 146). Gender is a constitutive element in the processes that ulti-

mately create social structure and uphold existing gender disparities (Acker, 1990).

Similarly, Britton (2011) asserts gender is already present within an organization and

occupation, rather than something that is only brought into an organization by the

workers. Ridgeway (2011) argues that cultural and individual-level biases permeate

and reify gender within organizations in ways that maintain existing gender inequal-

ity. These biases are reflected in friend-group compositions of coworkers, managers’

decisions regarding task allotment to employees, whether prestigious or onerous, and

promotions or firing.

Organizational practices and policies that presume and reproduce gender inequality

may take the form of explicit exclusionary rules, but more often inequality is disguised