Unit C - Blog 18

Many prisons and confinement institutions attempt to be gender neutral with their policies, but due to our society still structured through masculinity, it truly isn’t gender neutral. The common theme with law enforcement and correctional officers has been affiliated with violence, brutality, and strength, which ultimately is a masculine trait. Because our society doesn’t notice these socializations, they continue to be masculine. The training that these correctional officers receive is violent based. This comes off as unattractive and dangerous to women, therefore discouraging them from working in the field, which in turn keeps the institutions from being truly gender neutral. The violence also continues to drive masculinity through the training, and again, size and force come into the picture.
Men and women prisons are different in many ways. Men’s prisons are believed to be more violent, therefore more men officers are employ those areas due to the masculinity factor. There is also the perception that women are more emotional, not necessarily violent. These are very typical socializations and we continue to embrace them. Through the training these stereotypes are apparent as well. This reinforces it to the officers. The media continues to socialize prisons and officers as violent. All these things make a distinct divide between genders. Officers refer to women as emotional. If we keep using these terms to refer to curtain genders instead of using gender neutral terms and eliminating the misperception, according to Britton, that are apparent for the institutions, then they will always be considered masculine.