Friday, 15 November 2024

Postfeminism in prison: Women correctional officer’s accounts of gendered appearance at work

 


In contemporary culture where neoliberal principles of individualism, choice and free-market systems operate on the individual, looking attractive has renewed relevance for women. Dominant social discourses construct the expectation that women should maintain a heteronormatively attractive, or sexy, appearance (Elias et al, 2017; Gill, 2007). This body focus has both intensified and extended over the last decade, encompassing more social contexts (for example, pregnancy) and scrutinising more bodily areas (as I write, dermaplaning is trending, although Elias et al. in 2017 use examples like the ‘thigh gap’, and ‘tech neck’). Individual work, self-surveillance, and consumerism are constructed as necessary to achieve these heteronormative attractiveness standards, so that women’s bodies become centrally situated in achieving a sense of success and identity (Riley et al, 2017). Gill (2007) connects these shifts to how a postfeminist sensibility shapes women’s meaning making of gender and appearance.

But what happens for women when these culturally ingrained postfeminist beauty expectations meet an environment where women are socially penalised for having an attractive or traditionally feminine appearance?

Early research into prison work identified that women constantly battle gender stereotypes which construct all women, but particularly feminine appearing women, as incapable, and a risk when working with male prisoners (Jurik, 1988). Indeed, despite Australia’s long penal history, women have only been allowed to work in male prisons since the 1970s (O’Toole, 2006). More recent research found that women prison workers use strategies to manage their marginalisation such as crafting their looks to reduce markers of femininity within their appearance, and behaving in ways understood to be masculine (Burdett et al, 2018; Ricciardelli & McKendy, 2020).

I myself had experienced these prejudices, after stepping into an Australian men’s prison for the first time as a 24-year-old cis-gendered woman commencing her career in prison work. I had always worn two layers of mascara to leave the house, but was it worth the risk of colleagues assuming I was trying to flirt with the prisoners or with them? Would my mascara prevent me being taken seriously?

Many years later, Professor Sarah Riley, Professor Christine Stephens, Dr Alice Beban, and I (all of Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand) examined the discourses used by women working in Australian men’s prisons to make sense of their appearance, the implications of contradictory postfeminist and prison expectations for women’s sense of self, and how women prison workers enacted agency.

We used a cooperative inquiry method, which is a form of participatory action research involving co-learning with a small group of others in cycles of action and reflection, over an issue of mutual concern (Riley & Reason, 2024). Sixteen women between the ages of 25 to 60 took part, across four inquiry groups and six different high security correctional centres. Each group met five to six times, engaging in actions within their workplaces (for example, changing something about their appearance) which were then discussed during meetings. Distinctions between researchers and participants are collapsed in cooperative inquiry, and as a fellow woman working in prisons, I both facilitated and engaged in the inquiry. With permission from the participants, we used the data from these groups to complete a Foucauldian informed thematic analysis.

When asking how women made sense of their appearance and identity in prison work, we identified three overarching patterns of talk. The first was a ‘look good, feel good, be good’ discourse, where female prison workers of all age groups linked beauty work to personal confidence and professional ability. The women not only engaged in beauty work to feel more confident while at work, but paid careful attention to their uniformed appearance, including neat hairstyles, polished boots, and ironing. Here, postfeminist imperatives to look attractive were complemented by organisational discourses to appear ‘sharp’ while in their para-military uniforms.

Most often however, postfeminist and organisational discourses clashed. To negotiate conflicting postfeminist and prison appearance expectations, in the second pattern of talk, participants linked their beauty practices to their identity, drawing on postfeminist constructions of beauty work as choiceful and pleasurable. Again, this pattern of talk occurred across participants of all ages. This enabled participants to discursively legitimise their continued beauty work within an environment where it is often seen as problematic.

In the third pattern of talk, participants further negotiated conflicting postfeminist and prison appearance expectations through a ‘look good, but not too good’ argument, which allowed them to engage in some elements of beauty work (for example, “neutral” makeup), so long as they also engaged in extensive monitoring of their appearance and body language to avoid looking overly attractive or sexy. Younger women, whose age connected them more to sexualising discourses, were particularly careful to regulate their appearance in this way.

The power of postfeminist discourses is particularly notable in this prison workplace, where normative beauty standards remained a priority to participants despite conflicting occupational discourses that devalued all types of femininity. Although the participants’ accounts were heavily shaped by social and organisational discourses, our findings demonstrated that agency can be enacted within existing power structures. Participants drew on available discursive resources to find strategies which helped them to succeed. Despite the individualised nature of these strategies, we found that women’s presence in men’s prisons and motivation to succeed represents a level of resistance to status quo. Although this article has focussed on discursive restraints for female prison workers, our work opens the door to examine further possibilities for wider, structural forms of resistance.

References

Burdett, F., Gouliquer, L., & Poulin, C. (2018). Culture of corrections: The experiences of women correctional officers. Feminist Criminology, 13(3), 329–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118767974

Elias, A. S., Gill, R., & Scharff, C. (2017). Aesthetic labour: Beauty politics in neoliberalism. In A. S. Elias, R. Gill, & C. Scharff (Eds.), Aesthetic labour: Rethinking beauty politics in neoliberalism (pp. 167–181). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-47765-1

Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075898

Jurik, N. C. (1988). Striking a balance: Female correctional officers, gender role stereotypes, and male prisons. Sociological Inquiry, 58(3), 291–305. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1988.tb01063.x

O’Toole, S. (2006). The history of Australian corrections. UNSW Press.

Ricciardelli, R., & McKendy, L. (2020). Gender and prison work: The experience of female provincial correctional officers in Canada. The Prison Journal, 100(5), 617–639. https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885520956394

Riley, S., Evans, A., Elliott, S., Rice, C., & Marecek, J. (2017). A critical review of postfeminist sensibility. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(12), e12367. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12367

Riley, S., & Reason, P. (2024). Cooperative inquiry: An action research practice. In J. Smith (Ed.), Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods (4th ed., pp. 168–292). SAGE Publications Ltd.

 Author bio:



Claudia Walker is completing her doctoral studies in psychology at Massey University. She currently works within the corrective services field, with almost ten years’ experience spanning both men’s and women’s prisons. Her research explores the gendered experiences of correctional officers, including security staff and specialists, through action research methods.


Please find the online F&P manuscript on which this blog was based"Postfeminism in prison: A discourse analysis of women correctional officers’ accounts of gendered appearance at work" by Walker et al. 2024