Woman in Non-traditional Jobs (Blog 13)

In the popularized media prison guards and correctional officers are depicted in a light that is highly inaccurate and deeply gendered. Most would imagine a prison guard as being some big, buff man with who is cruel and aggressive because he has to fight off violent criminals all day. In reality even the criminals that have committed the most heinous of crimes are non-violent for the most part and actually contribute to the maintainable of the prison order. Non-the-less these inaccurate images have been portrayed in movies and the news for decades.

The images of women in these positions are typically negative because they are based on the norms of white femininity that imply that women should be submissive, dainty, weak, ect. For example, the woman cop in the online video described how she felt like she was in a fishbowl because people would constantly stare at her while in uniform because the general population views policing as a man’s job. Even her husband doubted her abilities because he felt that she wouldn’t be able to withstand the physical aspect because she is a woman.

In comparison to these images, the promotional video also put a negative light on traditional women’s work that in my opinion was kind of irritating. They described the characteristics of non-traditional jobs as being “exciting” versus working at the grocery store or making minimum wage, making the assumption that this is how all women typically work. They also mention having to "learn" about non-traditional jobs implying that traditional women's work requires no “learning” or intellect. A quote that really started to grind my gears what when they said that to work in a non-traditional job, "you really have to show them you know what your doing" as if you don't have to know what you're doing in a traditional woman's job.

Images between male and female corrections officers are poles apart. First of all, female correction officers often have to make a choice whether they want to adapt to male-defined requisites to be successful and forgo their “femininity or go against the male-defined roles and risk their success within the norms of the organization. Male officers don’t have to deal with what image they want to portray in the least bit. In fact they men fit right into their image because they are typically viewed as the “protectors” both by women and other men. For example, men are openly accepted in women’s correctional facilities because they could lend a hand in dealing with a violent inmate. In the opposite situation a woman’s ability would be doubted because of her image as a submissive, nurturing, tolerant and weak person (pg. 14).