Gender and Policing

Louise Westmarland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9781903240700
• eBook ISBN: 9781135993429
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Gender and Policing is an innovative study of the real world of street policing and the gender issues which are a central part of this. Derived from extensive ethnographic research (involving police responses to gangland shootings, high speed car chases as well as more routine policing activities), this book examines the way police attitudes and beliefs combine to perpetuate a working culture which is dependent upon traditional conceptions of 'male' and 'female'. In doing so it challenges previously held assumptions about the way women are harassed, manipulated and constrained, focusing rather on the more subtle impact of structures and norms within police culture.

Gender and Policing will be of interest to all those concerned with questions of policing and gender, and occupational culture more generally, while the theoretical framework developed will provide an important foundation for strategies of reform. At the same time the book provides a vivid and richly textured picture of the realities of operational policing in contemporary Britain.

Chapter 1

Policing and gendered bodies

Police officers embody the authority of the state and are afforded certain powers with which they are expected to preserve the peace, maintain social and political order and fight crime. To carry out these functions they wear a uniform and carry certain ‘tools of the trade’ such as handcuffs and truncheons, symbolising their legitimate right to use force. In carrying out their duties it is expected that bodily strength may have to be used to facilitate certain tasks. Despite the potentially physical nature of these activities and the increasing popularity of the study of ‘the human self as an embodied agent’ (Turner, 1996:6) however, it seems that the police have not been analysed in terms of the body. Indeed, there appears to be a significant lack of empirical research to complement the growing number of theoretical studies concerned with embodiment and gender, such as Bordo (1997), Davis (1996), Hausman (1995), Mackenzie (1998) and Scott (1997). ‘Lived’ experiences of men and women in the police, acknowledging differences in the ways they are embodied, have been ignored to date. This book will explore connections between police culture and the significance of gendered bodies on the street and throughout various specialist departments. To support this analysis, extensive ethnographic data are provided which illustrate the way force and strength are used as officers ‘contract in’ with their bodies, or choose to withdraw from certain encounters. Indeed, as personal and professional status in the police is largely dependent upon showing ‘bottle’, choices concerning the use of their physicality are especially significant to our understanding of police work. In effect, the way gendered bodies create a situation which perpetuates beliefs about certain occupational roles being designated either ‘male’ or ‘female’ is explored. Similarly, gendered identities, which take ‘genitalia to be the definitive sign of sex … essential to the symbolisation of reproductive sexuality’ (Butler, 1990:109-10) will be explored. One of the ways this will be carried out is by analysing ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ as a requirement in different fields of policing, through an examination of how the police deal with child abuse, domestic violence and sexual offences.

As a result of ‘bringing the body back in’ (Frank, 1990), therefore, this study analyses two interdependent areas of contention, the first of which is the debate surrounding differential deployment and gender. Since the official integration of women officers into the main police organisation there have been discussions about what they are actually doing in the police, what they should be doing, and how efficiently they are doing it. In the past this discussion has tended to be within the context of what Heidensohn describes as the ‘Is it working?’ approach (1995:104), which has examined the often fragmented and ineffectual organisational policies designed to create ‘equality of opportunity’ for women officers (see for example, Jones, 1986, Anderson, Brown and Campbell, 1993). In terms of the force and strength element of this debate, however, which usually reflects upon whether women are physically capable of carrying out the policing mandate, personal autonomy and the body as a representation of the gendered self seem to have been disregarded. As Walklate argues, there has been ‘an absence of a debate around policing as a gendered task’ (2001:149), leading to policewomen finding themselves in ambiguous positions regarding their careers. As ‘specialists’, simply by merit of being women, they are encouraged to work in departments dealing with supposedly gendered issues such as domestic violence, and may feel that this is where their talents can be used to provide the best possible service for the abused. Due to normative social and cultural expectations, the issue of embodiment has been ignored here too, although many of the tasks officers are required to carry out in their specialisms are linked to gendered bodies and their erotic and sexual identities. As authors of works on the body and sexuality have suggested, these issues are now believed to be more intimately connected than previously presumed (Pringle, 1992, Butler, 1997, Halford, Savage and Witz, 1997). Similarly, in policing, occupational roles are constructed due to assumptions about embodied expertise, such as the ability to care for children due to being able to give birth, or the ability to fight due to some aspect of male strength. Hence, this study uses the gendered body to illustrate the way force and anatomy are determinants of competence in the police.

A second area of contention this work will examine, in addition to the debate about differential deployment, is the way men and women experience their bodies in a gendered social order, ‘under the constant critical surveillance of others’ (Davis, 1996:115). Empirical evidence from field observations of the reality of ‘lived’ policing will be used to reflect upon various theoretical studies which are concerned with the ‘problem of the body in social life’ (Turner, 1992:31). As the analysis contributes to the debate about social theory and the body it considers the effect of gendered bodies in various situations, such as in the patrol car, and by observing the investigation of certain crimes. Consequently, as part of the ethnographic tradition, it interprets not only the actions but also the shared meanings of police officers by reflecting upon their ‘world view’, motives, values and beliefs, to examine the various gendered ways of enacting policing. In addition, in terms of participant observation and the analysis of police culture, it will provide the first British study of its type, concentrating on gender as a central focus.

As indicated above, previous studies which have described the daily activities of the police have tended to ignore the importance of the body as an analytic concept (Holdaway 1983, Reiner, 2000, Fielding, 1994), whilst theoretical discussions (Butler, 1990, Seidler, 1997, Shilling, 1993) have not been tested empirically. As Watson suggests, this is because the sociology of the body has ‘privileged theorising of “the body”; bracketed out the individual; and largely ignored practical experiences of embodiment’ (2000:51). Given the emphasis on various aspects of physicality and the apparent significance of personal strength in debates about gender and policing, it seems that this is a serious omission. It has been recognised for some time, however, in fictional representations of police activities, that upon arrest suspects become ‘bodies’ as they enter the domain of the police car, van or cell. This transitional process, which Young describes from an anthropological perspective as being based upon binary opposites, allows officers to distance themselves from the ‘prisoners’ by giving them derogatory titles such as ‘prigs’ and ‘scumbags’ (1991:111). Furthermore, in order for officers to manage their workload whilst abiding by certain ‘rules’ (Smith and Gray, 1983:171), suspects are dehumanised, slotted into coded offence categories and treated with reference to culturally accepted biases. In terms of normal practice, this means that ‘drunks’ picked up by the police may be classified as ‘incapable’, or alternatively capable and hence ‘disorderly’, depending upon their behaviour as a result of the amount of alcohol they have consumed. Arrested ‘bodies’ are usually assigned a certain status along a continuum of passivity and danger. In addition, dirty and ‘disgusting’ bodies, in the case of sex or drug offenders, are in diametric opposition to the bodies of women and children, who are seen as being in need of moral or physical protection. Gendered bodies are also significant, as this book will show, because the ‘stripped’ body, in the conducting of searches, and the contained body, in the event of imprisonment, require special attention to prevent allegations of sexual impropriety.

As Stanley and Wise argue, within sociology feminism has had an impact upon various fields including ‘crimes of violence towards women and children’ (1993:186-7). In addition, some feminists have concerned themselves with epistemological questions such as the ‘rejection of Cartesian binary or dichotomous categories as supposed descriptions of social life’ (ibid:137). Indeed, due to dissatisfaction with ‘both biologically essentialist and social constructionist analyses of the body’, Scott (1997), amongst others, has argued for the establishment of the body as ‘an agent in its own right, rather than as unintelligent, static and passive’ (Maynard, 1997:9). Furthermore, as a result of the critiques of certain anti-essentialist approaches to the study of gender, it has been suggested that social constructivism has ignored the body, leading to problems with explaining any connection whatsoever between biology and the social. As McNay argues, however, it is important to analyse differences within ‘monolithic sexual differences’ because ‘the female body and the feminine gender are not radically discontinuous as the sex/gender distinction implies’ (1992:23). Similarly, in his discussion of embodiment and social theory, Turner reviews theoretical approaches to the body and acknowledges the lack of productive empirical research in the area (Turner, 1996:1). His description of the history of the sociology of the body claims certain changes in Western industrial societies have led to new directions in the nature of labour and consumption. He argues that the machismo of young, working class men, which ‘no longer has a direct functional relevance’, has meant that what was once the ‘labouring body’ has now become the ‘desiring body’ (ibid:2). In essence, these men now carry out hard physical work, not as an aspect of paid employment, but to produce the toned body. Further, as Hobbs suggests, ‘violence is an enduring, emphatically masculine resource’ (1995:29), and policing, particularly for young men, may be regarded as one of the few remaining non-military occupations with a requirement for physical, bodily power and the possibility of mortal danger.

It seems that policing has traditionally been an occupation where physical, violent labour has been accepted, required and valued. Numerous studies have illustrated the importance of participants being perceived as being able to ‘handle themselves’ (see for example Fielding, 1988, Uildriks and Mastrigt, 1991, Heidensohn, 1994). Just as the growing consumer interest in ‘keeping fit’ is said to be relational to class and gender, in terms of an indication of financial status and availability of leisure, in the police the body as ‘physical capital – a possessor of power, status and distinctive symbolic forms’ (Shilling, 1997:88) is connected to being able to effect difficult, violent arrests. Consequently, as policing is somehow dependent upon physical abilities such as running, climbing and fighting and is potentially a legitimate outlet for aggression at work, it could be seen as an example of what Turner describes as the ‘culture which recognises the body is a project’ (1996:4). In a discussion of the changing styles of the female figure across time and cultures however, Bartky argues that although both men and women exercise, ‘Today, massiveness, power, or abundance in a woman's body is met with distaste. The current body of fashion is taut, small breasted, narrow hipped and of a slimness bordering on emaciation’ (1997:132–3).

In terms of his thesis on the body as a consuming self and representational being, Turner highlights the process whereby bodies are disciplined by consumerist desire, whilst emerging medical technologies provide ‘new opportunities for democratisation and authoritarian control of the human self as an embodied agent’ (1996:6–7). Once again, however, it could be argued that this process is linked to gendered bodies, as Young suggests that women are not normally judged in terms of their physical fitness. She is critical of the traditional approach which suggests that although most men are by no means superior athletes, ‘The relatively untrained man nevertheless engages in sport generally with more free motion and open reach than does his female counterpart’ (1990:146). Furthermore, the assumption that women ‘often approach a physical engagement with things with timidity, uncertainty and hesitancy’ (ibid), as they lack confidence and trust in their bodily abilities, is, she says, due to a certain self-consciousness in women and an ‘objectified bodily existence’ – meaning that ‘to open her body in free, active open extension and bold outward directedness is for a woman to invite objectification’ (1990:155).

Agency and structure

Theories of embodiment and the study of gendered roles and identities in the police cannot be discussed without reference to control and autonomy. If the body can be a representation of the self, through which ‘value and meaning is ascribed to the individual by the shape and image of their external body’ (Turner, 1996:23), it could be argued that an occupational culture which emphasises the need to produce quantifiable results and ‘confront the threat of sudden attack from another person’ (Reiner, 2000:88) will be especially dependent upon the outward appearance of the body. As police officers’ uniformed bodies are used as the signifier of the legitimate power to stop and detain suspects and the means by which the arrest is effected, even in nonviolent situations, this is of special relevance to individual status and sense of self. Studies that have examined police culture and competence, such as Holdaway (1983), Smith and Gray (1983) and Fielding (1994), have described tests of ‘manhood’ relating to arrests, which in turn lead to peer admiration. Where arrests are classified as dangerous or requiring athleticism, it is apparent that there are important qualitative judgments being made about men's bodies as powerful agents capable of physical intervention. On the other hand, women's bodies are generally disregarded as enforcers in police cultural analyses, with the exception of Young (1991), but as the evidence in this book this book will suggest, they are of great significance to the police as topics of erotic interest. Existing studies of the police, with a few exceptions where reference is made to unusually ‘manly’ women, their bodies are ignored, which is in contrast to the general interest in the female body, as in the literature on anorexia, ‘looking good’ (Turner, 1996:23) and medical technologies.

As noted earlier, Heidensohn classifies some of the previous studies focusing on women in the police as ‘Is it working?’ research (1995). She describes the ways in which women officers have been alleged to be controlled and constrained in their careers, and as Walklate suggests (2001), being ‘encouraged’ to go into departments dealing with women and children. This leads to their skills being undervalued and their prospects for promotion blocked because they are not engaging with so-called ‘proper policing’. One of the issues this book addresses, therefore, is ‘differential deployment’, by challenging the notion that women are unable to choose certain specialties whilst being manipulated into areas concerned with empathy, families and sexual offences. Just as it is acknowledged that women and men cannot leave their bodies, and that their uniforms cannot fully disguise or negate their gender, evidence will be presented in this study that although certain ‘roles’ are designated male or female, due to the gendered body being regarded as a qualification, the situation regarding human agency is rather more ambiguous. It is argued, for example, that although some police roles are supposedly gender neutral, as physical attributes such as muscular strength are not required for the tasks involved, they are symbolically ‘gendered’ due to other, more subtle cultural nuances.

In terms of controlling the body, Davis argues throughout her discussion of the ‘objectified body’ and cosmetic surgery that women are ‘agents … knowledgeable and active subjects who attempt to overcome their alienation, to act upon the world themselves instead of being acted upon by others’ (1996:115). In another debate about the way women are ‘alienated’ from their bodies, Young suggests that despite the effects of a male-dominated culture, ‘many women identify their breasts as themselves’ (1990:192). Furthermore, due to the possibilities of the ‘plastic body’, she asks, ‘Why shouldn't a woman choose perfect breasts?’ (ibid:201). As Martin points out, however, it is debatable to what extent women can escape their ‘bodily mode’ (1989:199), which is especially relevant within a ‘male’ environment such as the police. In a discussion grounded in Cartesian dualism, Church outlines the debate which she narrows to ‘two equally problematic alternatives – a conception of ourselves as something wholly distinct from our bodies … and a conception of ourselves as identical to our bodies’ (1997:86). She uses the ownership and selling of bodies to illustrate her argument that it is perfectly possible to sell ‘parts of our bodies – organs, parts of organs, skin, hair and so on’ (ibid:95 original emphasis) but prostitution and paid pregnancy create the notion of the selling of ‘more of oneself’. So although we can choose, ‘we do not have the right to prostitute ourselves’ because the selling that presupposes legitimate ownership simultaneously undermines the very possibility of ownership (ibid:96). As Edwards observes, prostitute women ‘demarcate and rigidly define quite precisely … thereby placing boundaries around certain parts of the body’ (1993:89). She discusses the exploitative nature of prostitution in the light of evidence that these women claim to ‘retain their autonomy and private space’ whilst ‘segmenting and selling parts of their bodies as commodities’ (ibid), which highlights the issue of autonomous agency and women's embodiment (Mackenzie, 1998:122).

It could be argued, therefore, that the ‘absent body’ as Turner describes it, in terms of the problem of structure and agency (1992:67), is central to the debate about gender and differential deployment in the police. As he says, if the idea of sociology is regarded as a study of action, a social theory of the body is necessary because ‘human agency and interaction involve far more than mere knowledgeability, intentionality and consciousness’ (ibid:35). Connell also suggests that ‘the concern with force and skill becomes a statement embedded in the body’, due not only to the structure of class relations, but also to the structure of power in gender relations (1987:85). Furthermore, as Giddens argues, understanding the individualised agent in embodied terms is vital in relation to competence because ‘routine control of the body is integral to the very nature both of agency and of being accepted (trusted) by others as competent’ (1991:57). One of the reasons this type of approach has been absent, however, according to Turner, is that structuration theory has ignored the ‘nature of the agent in agency’ (1992:67), simply treating the body as a subject for the natural sciences, and as a ‘rational choosing disembodied “man” [researchers] have ignored the importance of feeling and emotion in social action’ (ibid:68). Consequently, sociological views of the body have tended to view the ‘meaningful character of social action from the standpoint of the social actor’, thus avoiding the ‘corporeal side of human action’ (Turner, 1996:36).

In summary, it is argued here that in policing, as in other occupations which may or may not require physical strength, such as agriculture and medicine, there is a ‘between-men culture’ which has been structured to exclude women (Irigaray, 1993:45). Irigaray argues that to demand equality is a ‘mistaken objective’, however (ibid:12), because men and women are not equal and differences should be recognised (ibid:84). In order to move on from traditional epistemologies, therefore, which regard emotions as ‘disruptive and subversive of knowledge’ (Stanley and Wise, 1993:193) ‘inimical to the production of reliable and rational knowledge’ (Scott, 1997:115), it has been suggested that empiricism should be discarded. In their rejection of the value of ‘objective scientific’ observations, Stanley and Wise suggest that feminist ontologies should ‘include emotionality as the product of culture’ rejecting ‘Cartesian binary ways of polarising reason and emotion’ (1993:193). As a result, there could be analyses in which ‘the body can be a source of the alternative perspective which leads to a more complete and adequate understanding’ (Scott, 1997:115).

Method

In essence, this study aims to complete some parts of the picture concerning what is known about the relationship between policing and gender. It focuses on those areas that have been discussed and theorised previously, such as differential deployment and the gendered nature of tasks, in addition to the relationship between the body and policing. Unlike many previous studies, however, rather than drawing upon what the participants say they feel or do, the research was conducted primarily using ethnographic principles, with policing as a site for ‘an ethnography of the body and body work’ (Coffey, 1999:61). As Wolcott suggests, every ethnography is unique and ‘no particular one can be singled out for having set the standard for all that follow’ (1999:110). Hence, no single study ‘past or present will ever serve as a suitable one-model-fits-all’ (ibid), and in this study there was some deviation from a ‘classic ethnography’, in the strictest sense of the term, in places. Supplementary material was gained through interviews, focus groups and statistical analysis, where this illustrated or supported the ethnographic data, although not in some mistaken attempt to triangulate the data – as Gomm, Hammersley and Foster argue, ‘denial of the capacity of case study research to support empirical generalisation often seems to rest on the mistaken assumption that this form of generalisation requires statistical sampling’ (2000:104). The ethnographic part of the research was in the general sense participant observation, in that the researcher accompanied and observed officers, but at times was unable to remain outside the scene completely. Instances where ‘help’ was needed or demanded by officers on patrol, or the researcher was mistaken for a police officer, are examples of this situation.

So although this study claims to be based on ‘participant...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface and acknowledgements
• 1 Policing and gendered bodies
• 2 Gendered specialists: dealing with women and children
• 3 Sexual deployment: offences against decency
• 4 Gender arrests: men and women on patrol
• 5 Cars, guns and horses: masculinities in control
• 6 Masculinities, the body and policing
• Bibliography
• Index