Researchers have given some attention to women law enforcement officers' experiences and perceptions of sexual harassment. Yet, few studies have determined how the interaction of gender and race affect African American women's perception of this workplace impediment. This article explores one group of women's experiences in a U.S. sheriff's department. Interview data gathered from 65 African American women who are active and former law enforcement officers provide a comprehensive examination of how African American women in nontraditional criminal justice occupations experience racialized sexual harassment. Differences in degree and frequency of harassment are found among the women in different cohorts based on their job tenure, marital status, and the race of their harassers.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alex, Nicholas
. 1969. Black in blue: A study of the Negro policeman. New York: Meredith Corporation.
2.
Appier, Janis
. 1997. Policing women: The sexual politics of law enforcement and the LAPD. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
3.
Britton, Dana
. 1997. Perceptions of the work environment among correctional officers: Do race and sex matter?Criminology335 (1): 85-105.
4.
Burnham, Margaret
. 1992. The Supreme Court process and the politics of race and sex. In Race-ing justice, en-gendering power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality, edited by Toni Morrison. New York: Pantheon.
5.
Cashmore, Ellis
. 1991. Black cops, inc. In Out of order? Policing Black people, edited by Ellis Cashmore and Eugene McLaughlin. New York: Routledge.
6.
City of Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women
. 1992. Report of the city of Los Angeles 1992 sexual harassment survey. Los Angeles: Commission on the Status of Women.
7.
Collins, Patricia Hill
. 1998. Fighting words: Black women and the search for justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
8.
Collins, Patricia Hill
. 2000. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. 2d ed.New York: Routledge.
9.
Crank, John P.1998. Understanding police culture. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.
10.
Crenshaw, Kimberly
. 1992. Whose story is it, anyway? Feminist and antiracist appropriations of Anita Hill. In Race-ing justice, en-gendering power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality, edited by Toni Morrison. New York: Pantheon.
11.
Dulaney, W. Marvin
, 1996. Black police in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
12.
Essed, Philomena
. 1991. Understanding everyday racism: An interdisciplinary theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
13.
Fain, Terri C.
, and Douglas L. Anderton. 1987. Sexual harassment: Organizational context and diffuse status. Sex Roles5:291-311.
14.
Felkenes, George T.
, and Jean R. Schroedel. 1993. A case study of women in policing. Women and Criminal Justice4:65-89.
15.
Fitzgerald, Louise
. 1993. Sexual harassment and violence against women in the workplace. American Psychologist48:1070-1076.
16.
Fonow, Mary Margaret
, and Judith A. Cook. 1991. Beyond methodology: Feminist scholarship as lived research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
17.
Ford, C. A.
, and F. Donis. 1996. The relationship between age and gender in workers' attitudes toward sexual harassment. Journal of Psychology130 (6): 627-633.
18.
Frankfort-Nachmias, Chava
, and David Nachmias. 1999. Research methods in the social sciences. 6th ed.New York: Worth.
19.
Giddings, Paula
. 1984. When and where I enter: The impact of Black women on race and sex in America. New York: William Morrow and Company.
20.
Giuffre, Patti
, and Christine Williams. 1994. Boundary lines: Labeling sexual harassment in restaurants. Gender & Society8 (3): 378-401.
21.
Glenn, Evelyn Nakano
. 1992. From servitude to service work: Historical continuities in the racial division of paid reproductive labor. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society18:1-43.
22.
Gruber, James
, and Lars Bjorn. 1982. Blue-collar blues: The sexual harassment of women auto workers. Work and Occupations9:271-298.
23.
Gutek, Barbara
. 1993. Sexual harassment: Rights and responsibilities. Employees' Responsibilities and Rights Journal6 (4): 325-340.
24.
Gutek, Barbara
, and Bruce Morash. 1982. Sex ratios, sex-role spillover and sexual harassment of women at work. Journal of Social Issues38:55-74.
25.
Gwartney-Gibbs, Patricia A.
, and Denise Lach. 1992. Sociological explanations for failure to seek sexual harassment remedies. Mediation Quarterly9:365-374.
26.
hooks, bell
. 1981. Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston: South End.
27.
hooks, bell
. 1984. Feminist theory: From margin to center. Boston: South End.
28.
Horne, Peter
. 1975. Women in law enforcement. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.
29.
Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department
. 1991. Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles: Independent Commission.
30.
Janus, Samuel
, Cynthia Janus, Leslie Lord, and Thomas Power. 1988. Women in police work: Annie Oakley or Little Orphan Annie?Police Studies11:124-127.
31.
Jones, Jacqueline
. 1985. Labor of love, labor of sorrow: Black women, work, and the family from slavery to the present. New York: Basic Books.
32.
Kalof, Linda
, Kimberly Eby, Jennifer Matheson, and Robert Kroska. 2001. The influence of race and gender on student self-reports of sexual harassment by college professors. Gender & Society15 (2): 282-302.
33.
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss
. 1977. Some effects of proportions on group life: Skewed sex ratios and responses to token women. American Journal of Sociology82 (5): 965-990.
34.
Kerle, Kenneth E.1985. The American woman county jail officer. In The changing roles of women in the criminal justice system: Offenders, victims, and professionals, edited by Imogene Moyer. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
35.
King, Deborah
. 1988. Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of Black feminist ideology. In Black women in America: Social science perspectives, edited by Micheline R. Malson, Jean F. O'Barr, Sarah Westphal-Whil, and Mary Wyer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36.
Leinen, Stephen
. 1984. Black police, white society. New York: New York University Press.
37.
Lindemann, Barbara
, and David Kadue. 1992. Primer on sexual harassment. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs.
38.
Mansfield, Phyllis K.
, Patricia B. Koch, Julie Henderson, Judith R. Vicary, M. Cohn, and E. W. Young. 1991. The job climate for women in traditionally male blue-collar occupations. Sex Roles25:63-79.
39.
Martin, Susan
. 1989a. Breaking and entering: Policewomen on patrol. Berkeley: University of California Press.
40.
Martin, Susan
. 1989b. POLICEwomen and policeWOMEN: Occupational role dilemmas and choices of female officers. Journal of Police Science and Administration2:314-323.
41.
Martin, Susan
. 1994. “Outsider within” the station house: The impact of race and gender on Black women police. Social Problems41:383-400.
42.
Martin, Susan
. 1997. Women officers on the move: An update of women in policing. In Critical issues in policing. 3d ed., edited by Roger Dunham and Geoffrey Alpert. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
43.
Martin, Susan
, and Nancy Jurik. 1996. Doing justice, doing gender: Women in law and criminal justice occupations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
44.
Martin, Susan
, and Nancy Jurik. 2001. Femininities, masculinities, and organizational conflict: Women in criminal justice occupations. In Women, crime, and criminal justice, edited by Claire Renzetti and Leslie Goldstein. Los Angeles: Roxbury.
45.
McCall, George J.
, and J. L. Simmons. 1969. Issues in participant observation. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
46.
Messerschmidt, James W.1986. Capitalism, patriarchy, and crime: Toward a socialist feminist criminology. Potowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.
47.
Messerschmidt, James W.1993. Masculinities and crime: Critique and reconceptualization of theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
48.
More, Harry W.1992. Male-dominated police culture: Reducing the gender gap. In Special topics in policing, edited by H. More. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.
49.
Morton, Patricia
. 1991. Disfigured images: The historical assault on Afro-American women. Westport, CT: Praeger.
50.
National Center for Women and Policing
. 2001. Equality denied: The status of women in policing: 2000. Arlington, VA: Feminist Majority Foundation.
Owen, Barbara
. 1988. The reproduction of social control: A study of prison workers at San Quentin. New York: Praeger.
53.
Painter, Nell I.1992. Hill, Thomas, and the use of racial stereotype. In Race-ing justice, en-gendering power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the construction of social reality, edited by Toni Morrison. New York: Pantheon.
54.
Pike, Diane L.1985. Women in police academy training: Some aspect of organizational response. In The changing roles of women in the criminal justice system: Offenders, victims, and professionals, edited by Imogene Moyer. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
55.
Rafky, David
. 1975. Racial discrimination in police departments. Crime and Delinquency21:233-242.
56.
Remmington, Patricia Weiser
. 1981. Policing: The occupation and the introduction of female officers. Washington, DC: University Press of America.
57.
Remmington, Patricia Weiser
. 1983. Women in the police: Integration or separation?Qualitative Sociology6:188-135.
58.
Rospenda, Kathleen
, Judith Richman, and Stephanie Nawyn. 1998. Doing power: The confluence of gender, race, and class in contrapower sexual harassment. Gender & Society12 (1): 40-60.
59.
Sanchez-Hucles, Janis
. 1997. Jeopardy not bonus status for African American women in the work force: Why does the myth of advantage persist?American Journal of Community Psychology25:565-581.
60.
Segrave, Kerry
. 1995. Policewomen: A history. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
61.
Skolnick, Jerome
. 1993. Above the law: Police and the excessive use of force. New York: Free Press.
62.
St. Jean, Yanick
, and Joe Feagin. 1998. Double burden: Black women and everyday racism. New York: M. E. Sharpe.
63.
Timmins, William
, and Brad Hainsworth. 1989. Attracting and retaining females in law enforcement: Sex-based problems of women cops in 1988. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology33:197-205.
64.
Townsey, Roi D.1982. Black women in American policing: An advancement display. Journal of Criminal Justice10:455-468.
65.
U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics
. 2000. Local police departments 1997. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
66.
Walker, Samuel
. 1985. Racial minority and female employment in policing. The implications of “glacial” change. Crime & Delinquency31:355-372.
67.
Yoder, Jan
, and Patricia Aniakudo. 1995. The response of African American women firefighters to gender harassment at work. Sex Roles32:125-138.
