Gender, Accounts, and Rape Processing Work

Abstract

Guided by gendered organization theory and organizational frame analysis, this study explores officials' accounts offender and rape processing work. The data are from qualitative interviews with 47 Florida officials who process rape victims in law enforcement, hospital emergency room, prosecution, and rape crisis contexts. Results indicate that gender “at the level of the group” is a fluid cultural resource that officials use in contradictory ways (Thome 1993). Five gender frames account for why women, men or neither are superior in processing work. Overall, results support gendered organization theory, showing that (a) gender and work are fused in ways that mutually reproduce each other, (b) gender is part of official policy and practice in some organizations, (c) most processing work is performed within a gendered division of labor, and (d) processors mobilize gender informally even when policy or protocol say it is irrelevant. The results challenge cultural beliefs that women are better than men at work with rape victims. Comparative research is needed to document the prevalence of gender accounts, arrangements, and policies across organizations, jobs, and genders, and to assess them relative to victim and organizational outcomes.