Preserving Masculine Dominance in the Police Force with Gendered Bullying and Sexual Harassment

Implications of police occupational culture in discriminatory experiences of senior women in police forces in England and Wales

“…) and a downplaying of tacit (experiential) knowledge (Honey, 2014). Under these circumstances, men may engage in the 'ressentiment' identified by Loftus and the assertion of gender differences predicted by Breakwell (1983) in the form of sexual harassment, and bullying found by Steinþórsdóttir and Pétursdóttir (2017). Such behaviours, it is argued, operate to retain a 'male' police identity in the organisational hierarchy in the face of external threats by projecting women as 'other', especially those moving into senior positions.…”

“…The notion of culture has often been employed as an explanatory device to account for police (men's) behaviour, particularly misconduct (Prenzler, 1997) and bias (Murphy et al 2017). Steinþórsdóttir and Pétursdóttir (2017) draw on the work of Berdahl to suggest that in a context where one's place in the gender hierarchy is threatened, such as policing, there is a greater likelihood of sex based harassment. Also, where attempts are made towards equal treatment, the threatened group is more likely to retaliate with harassing behaviours.…”

“…Harassment operates to preserve men's status in the hierarchy (Parker and Griffin, 2002;Steinþórsdóttir and Pétursdóttir, 2017). Wolfe (2018) observes that the 'Me Too' testimonies demonstrate the persisting and enduring presence of sexual harassment despite the introduction of anti-harassment policies and grievance procedures.…”

“…Sexual harassment and discrimination remains present in the police workforce despite comprehensive policies being set in place relating to affirmative action, equal opportunity and other strategies e.g. in England and Wales Cassell, 2003, Foster et al 2005); Australia (Prenzler, Fleming and King 2010); The Netherlands (Haas et al, 2010); Iceland (Steinþórsdóttir and Pétursdóttir, 2017) and the USA (Haar and Morash, 2013). Reiner (2010) holds that police culture operates as a frame of reference, essentially the world view of the largely male rank and file police officer, as a way to orientate their behaviour.…”

“…Moreover, officers holding perspectives close to the ideal of 'traditional' police culture are more likely to engage in violence, externally and internally. Such ideas continue to resonate in contemporary accounts (Atkinson 2017) in the form of devaluing, de-grading and de-professionalising women, often through office banter, derogation and gendered bullying (Steinþórsdóttir and Pétursdóttir , 2017). Others have shown the adverse impact of such behaviour on women's career progression (Dick and Metcalfe, 2001; Howes and Goodman-Delahunty, 2015), lack of support (Hassell and Brandl, 2009) and gender segregated tasking (Haake, 2017).…”