Is it ‘just hair’ or is it ‘everything’? Embodiment and gender repression in policing

Understanding the interplay between organisational injustice and the health and wellbeing of female police officers: a meta-ethnography

BACKGROUND

Female police officers are reported to encounter more bias, discriminatory practices, and inadequate support than their male counterparts and experience poorer health outcomes. This meta-ethnographic review looks beyond individual responsibilities to consider which aspects of policing impact the health and well-being of female police officers.

METHODS

Primary qualitative and mixed method studies published between 2000 and 2024 were included. ProQuest (all databases) and Ovid (Medline and Embase) were searched using terms related to health, wellbeing, females, police, and qualitative research. This was a cross-jurisdictional review, with no limit on country of study. In total, twenty-one papers met the inclusion criteria. A seven-phase inductive and interpretative meta-ethnographic technique was employed to synthesise, analyse, and interpret the data.

RESULTS

The data analysis revealed a distinct outcome that demonstrated a strong relationship and substantial impacts of organisational injustice on the health and well-being of female police officers. Our findings showed that organisational injustice, encompassing procedural, relational, distributive, and gendered injustice, significantly influences the health and well-being of female officers. Impacts on mental health were commonly discussed, followed by aspects influencing social health, workplace wellbeing, and physical health. Moreover, the effects of these four forms of organisational injustice and the associated cultural, systemic, and structural risk factors extend beyond the immediate health and wellbeing impacts on the individual female officer through impeding other aspects of their work life, such as career progression and work-life balance, that can further impact long-term health and well-being.

CONCLUSION

This review highlights the importance of addressing organisational injustice and the cultural, systemic, and structural risk factors within policing to promote healthier and more inclusive workforces for female officers. Policymakers and practitioners should critically examine policies and practices that may appear gender neutral but disproportionately impact women, affecting the health and well-being of female police officers. By addressing these issues, transformative action can be taken to create safer, more supportive, and healthier working environments for female police officers.

Prisoners' Perceived Violence and Hair Regulation in Hong Kong Prisons: Gender-Based Differences

Hair regulation is an essential policy for maintaining hygiene, security, and discipline in correctional institutions. However, the implementation of any hair-regulating policy should include a consideration of gender needs and differences. This study investigated Chinese prisoners’ perceived influence of hairstyles on their behavioral responses. Data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire survey from 500 male and 500 female prisoners in 11 correctional institutions of Hong Kong, China. Descriptive analyses and chi-square tests were used to explore the perceived violence of prisoners and gender differences. Mediation analysis was adopted to examine the prisoners’ perceived behavioral responses and mental and psychological well-being under different hairstyle situations, using self-esteem, procedural fairness, and negative emotional responses as mediators. The study found that male prisoners are inherently more tensive than the female group in terms of violent proclivities. In addition, perceived violent behavior is associated with hairstyle, and the influence path is gender related. Restrictive hair regulations that do not address unique social and cultural meanings and gender differences would decrease male prisoners’ self-esteem, while increasing all prisoners’ negative emotional responses and reducing their perceived procedural fairness. To maintain security inside institutions, we recommend short hair for male prisoners and long hair for female prisoners in Chinese prisons. Given that many prisons in Asian and African nations have an authoritarian style of governance similar to that of China, this study is of considerable international relevance.

No Room of her Own: Married Couples' Negotiation of Workspace at Home During COVID-19

The current study examined the right to a professional workspace and separation between private and public within the home as an arena of gendered negotiation and struggle between spouses working from home during the COVID-19 crisis. Using a qualitative, inductive approach based on grounded theory, we conducted in-depth interviews with fifteen professional couples in Israel about their experiences with working from home and the division of labor and space between spouses. Our analysis revealed three key issues related to these experiences: the division of physical workspace between the spouses, the division of work time (compared to home time), and bodily-spatial aspects of the infiltration of workspace into home through the Zoom camera. The patterns described here suggest that the gendered power relations between spouses working from home are reproduced through an unequal negotiation of space and time in the home, so that in practice, men's work was prioritized in spatio-temporal terms, whereas women's workspace and time was more fragmented and dispersed throughout the home and day. These findings illuminate women's right to workspace in the home as an issue of gender equality that has been amplified by the current global pandemic, and how gendered divisions of space and time serve to reproduce the gender order.

"They Can't Search Her": How Gender Imbalances in the Police Force Contribute to Perceptions of Procedural Unfairness

Research suggests that gender imbalances in police forces can significantly affect individuals' experiences when interacting with police. Of importance, yet rarely examined, is the extent to which predominantly male police forces, in conjunction with adherence to gendered departmental policies, can simultaneously send signals of procedural justice and procedural injustice. Drawing on data from 253 in-depth interviews of San Francisco-based male and female drug-dealing gang members, we investigated how interactions with a male-dominated police force, who were required to search only suspects of the same gender, affected perceptions of fair policing. Our findings revealed that the study participants raised concerns that the police unfairly enforced the law to the detriment of the men in the study. The gang members were aware that male officers could only search same-sex suspects, and this exacerbated the gendered experiences of the gang members. Specifically, it contributed to the perception that male officers targeted male gang members to the omission of women and, if women were stopped, they were frequently released. These findings suggest that the gender composition of the police force is important in shaping attitudes toward equitable enforcement of the law and procedural fairness. Of theoretical importance, these findings highlight a contradiction that compliance with rules can contribute, counter intuitively, to perceptions of procedural injustice. Procedurally unfair police behavior may be a systemic problem where the gender composition of the police force itself creates an inherently unfair system.