Gender Policing Research Articles

Conditional Cash Transfer Programs and the Sustainable Development Goals: Problematizing the Empowering Potential of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

Abstract Purportedly in line with the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) commitment to end poverty and gender inequality by 2030, conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) provide poor households with cash contingent on parents making human capital investments in their children. Advocates claim CCTs empower and so benefit women and girls. Critics worry the programs reinforce gendered expectations by tying social protection to “good mothering.” The aim of this paper is to assess whether CCTs are compatible with the SDGs’ stated aims with regards to Goal 5 on gender equality and empowerment. I argue that CCTs run contrary to the stated aims of SDG 5. CCTs rely on and perpetuate sexist ideology about women while simultaneously policing women’s behavior to ensure they fulfill the state’s conception of a “good mother.” Notwithstanding the potential benefits women receive from CCTs, the programs prevent the disruption of power relations by reinforcing norms that incentivize women to engage in self-subordinating ways in exchange for cash. Given that the programs re-entrench and police gender norms, CCTs thwart progress towards SDG 5 and so move us no closer to a gender equal world.

Mapping Multilevel Contributions to the Sexual Victimization of Trans Women and Trans Feminine People: A Qualitative Intersectional Stigma Analysis

ABSTRACT We aimed to characterize and conceptually organize multilevel factors associated with the sexual victimization experiences of trans women and trans feminine people to advance violence prevention interventions for health-equity. Between October 2020 and July 2021, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 expert informants in New York City, which we transcribed, coded, and analyzed. Qualitative insights were derived through an intensive, team-based iterative coding strategy resulting in the development of an exhaustive set of consensus codes which were organized and interpreted in a multi-level structure. Findings revealed a complex constellation of intersecting macro- and micro-structural mechanisms reinforcing sexual violence. Unique characteristics of this violence were characterized hierarchically in terms of: 1) violence forms (e.g. murder, fetishization), 2) perpetrators (e. g. safety-staff; group assault), 3) contexts (e.g. public accommodations), 4) functions (e.g. gender policing), 5) ideological reinforcers (e.g. transphobia, racism), and 6) structural reinforcers (e.g. legislation; linking access to material means of survival to poverty/illness). Results indicate that acute incidents of sexual victimization are “the tip of the iceberg” of the violence impacting trans communities. The community experts we interviewed (e.g. trans women, violence prevention practitioners, social workers) understand chronic functional, ideological, and structural oppression as inextricable from sexual violence. Multi-level determinants of violence therefore constitute essential targets of sexual violence prevention intervention for this population.

You have to work twice as hard as a woman to show that you are competent. Experiences, opportunities and workplace gender harassment for Sport and Exercise Medicine practitioners working in elite sport in Australia

ObjectiveOur aim was to investigate (1) gender representation, (2) opportunities and training and (3) harassment experiences in Sport and Exercise Medicine (SEM) practitioners working in elite sport in Australia.MethodsAll titled...

Beyond inclusion politics: A critical discourse analysis of sex and gender in medical education.

Medical training refers frequently to sex and gender, yet these terms are often used vaguely and interchangeably with little critical engagement. We aimed to better understand the key discourses around sex and gender in medical training. All verbal and written instances of gendered/sexed language, occurring in lectures, slides and provided written materials, within 1year of preclerkship medical education at a single institution in Canada were recorded autoethnographically by a medical student. We analysed these instances using critical discourse analysis informed by anticolonial, feminist and queer theoretical perspectives, particularly contrasting the concepts of governmentality and ungovernability to better understand how sex and gender are deployed in medical training. Despite the proliferation of ostensibly queer- and trans-positive content in medical curricula, sex and gender were frequently communicated inconsistently and imprecisely. In addition to, and perhaps as a result of, this inconsistent use, we uncovered three key discourses of (1) gender policing, (2) misogyny and (3) gender legibility. Collectively, these discourses can illustrate how medical education governs and reinforces gender norms. The repetitive and everyday use of ill-defined and uncritical gendered and sexed language can be seen to discursively uphold systems of cisheteropatriarchy and transphobia within medicine. Trans and intersex bodies cannot be considered addendums to be tacked on to a foundation of cisnormative and inaccurate teaching in medical education. Institutional attempts to improve curricula must go beyond the addition of new modules, which can be undermined by otherwise cisheteropatriarchal understandings of sex and gender.

The Role of Police Gender Desk in Fighting Gender-Based Violence in Tanzania, a Reflection from Dar es Salaam Region

The Role of Police Gender Desk in Fighting Gender-Based Violence in Tanzania, a Reflection from Dar es Salaam Region

The language of belonging: The role of symbolic language in shaping social identity and public perceptions of police gender targets

AbstractGender‐targeted recruitment in policing has elicited varied public responses. This study explores public sentiment toward policing gender targets using a symbolic interactionist and social identity approach. A sentiment analysis was conducted on 5447 comments extracted from a Facebook recruitment campaign targeting women. The study revealed a nearly equal distribution of positive and negative language in the comments, with high levels of trust and fear, and notable expressions of anger and sadness. Positive sentiments utilised terms like “equality” and “merit” indicating support for gender targets as a means to promote gender equality and career opportunities for women. Conversely, negative sentiments centred on discrimination. Findings underscore how individuals construct meaning around gender and interpret gender‐target initiatives in policing through the sentiments expressed in online interactions. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of public discourse surrounding gender targets, highlighting the importance of tailored recruitment and educational campaigns to promote inclusivity and effective gender‐targeted initiatives.

Factors Influencing the Struggle towards Reduction of Gender-Based Violence in Meru District Council, Arusha Region, Tanzania

It is important to end Gender-Based Violence because of its consequences in communities but there are factors influencing the efforts toward Reduction of Gender-Based Violence. Tanzania Police Gender and Child Desk fight against gender violence among different communities whereby gender violence survivors report cases with assurance of professional treatment by trained police officers. Main objective was to analyze factors the Performance of Police Gender and Children Desk on Reduction of Gender-Based Violence in Meru District Council, Arusha Region. Tanzania. A cross-sectional research design involving 324 heads of households was adopted for the study. Data were collected using household survey questionnaire and analysed using Multiple linear regression model. Factors; Gender-based Violence cases resolved, number of Gender-based Violence cases reported per annum, increased number of Police officers trained on Gender-based Violence, Level of community awareness and community members trained on Gender-based Violence per annum were statistically significant at 1% level. It is concluded that Police Gender and Children Desk had significant contribution in reduction of gender-based violence in Meru District Council of Arusha Region. The study recommends that the gender issues related stakeholders at the country and international levels support the Police Gender and Children Desk to end as Gender-based Violence.

Challenges in the Police Gender and Development Initiatives

Explicitly outlined under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, the United Nations aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Furthermore, it has enumerated initiatives to achieve gender equality in police forces. Guided by the UN call, member countries have instituted Gender and Development (GAD) programs within their police forces. In the Philippines, laws, such as Republic Act 9710 or the Magna Carta for Women, were enacted to enforce gender equality in the police force. Section 15 of the law stipulates the fair treatment of women in the police service. But despite these developments, gender issues are still evident in the police force. Hence, it is the objective of the study to determine the challenges encountered by the police force relative to GAD initiatives. The study adopted a qualitative research design, given the involvement of qualitative data and the absence of experimental manipulations. Thematic analysis served as the chosen method for data examination. The results reveal that budget constraints, involvement constraints, speaker competence, and GAD personnel continuity are the challenges experienced by police in their GAD initiatives. Hence, strategic resource management such as cultivating networks with other government and non-government agencies is necessary to address these issues and guarantee that GAD initiatives are focused and accommodating.

Contribution of the Tanzania Police Gender and Children Desk on Reduction of Gender-Based Violence in Meru District, Tanzania

This study assessed the contribution of the Tanzania Police Gender and Children Desk on reduction of gender-based violence in Meru District in Arusha Region, Tanzania. The objectives of this study were to examine community perceptions of the effectiveness of the Tanzania Police Gender and Children Desk in addressing gender-based violence, to determine the extent of incidences of gender-based violence resolved by the Tanzania Police Gender and Children Desk, and to analyze the influence of the police gender and children desk in addressing gender-based violence. A cross-sectional design was adopted, involving 120 respondents. Data were collected using a household self-administered questionnaire and key informant interviews. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression methods were used in analyzing the collected data. Results showed that the majority of the respondents (65.0%) perceived TPGCD as highly effective in addressing gender-based violence, 26.7%) perceived TPGCD as moderately effective in addressing gender-based violence, and 8.3% perceived TPGCD as lowly effective in meeting its objective of addressing gender-based violence, among others. Likewise, there was a substantial decrease in incidences of gender-based violence in the areas with TPGCD centers, indicating that the decline was due to the eminent effects of TPGCD. Further, the contributions of TPGCD included receiving and summoning resolutions of reported GBV cases, training police officers on GBV issues, and creating awareness among community members about GBV issues. The study concludes that there is a positive influence of TPGCD on the reduction of gender-based violence in the study area. Moreover, it is recommended based on this study that the government, through its Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women, and Special Groups, amicably extend PGCD throughout all institutions and ward authorities to enable all community members to get gender awareness and access services regarding incidences of GBV in their communities.

Positionality, Gender and Reflexivity in Outsider-Insider Research

This article examines the intricacies of researcher positionality in a study examining women in policing in China. It aims to shed light on the manifold ways in which researcher positionality – the researcher’s relationship with the participants, gender and other identities – impacts the research process. The study draws from my own experiences, as a female researcher and former insider, engaging in qualitative interviews with both female and male police officers in the context of a feminist inquiry into women in Chinese policing. This article explores the advantages and challenges of outsider-insider research, dissects the role of gender in shaping the research landscape and probes how the researcher’s myriad identities may influence research access, information gathering, data analysis, findings and conclusions. Moreover, it discusses strategies adopted to overcome research barriers. By presenting this outsider-insider research as a case study, the article underscores the vital role of researcher reflexivity in unearthing the truth regarding women’s experiences and upholding academic rigour. It not only advocates for the use of qualitative interviewing as a tool for knowledge production, but also makes important contributes to the fields of feminist research and qualitative inquiry. In addition, it offers compelling narratives of women within Chinese law enforcement, thereby enriching the discourse on gender policing studies.

EXTENSIVENESS OF POLICE GENDER DESK PROACTIVE STRATEGIES IN COMBATING VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN HAI DISTRICT, TANZANIA

This study investigated the Extensiveness of police gender desk proactive strategies in combating violence against children in public secondary schools in Hai District, Tanzania. Grounded in the Theory of Social Disorganization from the 1940s, a mixed methods approach with a convergent research design was utilized, integrating both qualitative and quantitative data. The target population included 6 police gender desk officers, 29 ordinary level public secondary schools, 4268 students, and 618 teachers in Hai District. A proportional stratified random sampling technique was employed to select 102 teachers and 429 students, while total population sampling was applied to select 9 heads of schools and 6 police gender desk officers, resulting in a total sample of 546 individual. The data collection instruments were validated by research experts at MWECAU in the field of education, and a pilot study was conducted in two public secondary schools. The reliability of the questionnaire for Likert scale items was estimated using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients, which were 0.75 for students and 0.80 for teachers. The reliability of qualitative data was ensured through peer debriefing and triangulation. Data were collected using questionnaires, interview guides, and document analysis, adhering to ethical considerations throughout the research process. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data with SPSS version 22, while qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The study found that educational programs initiated by the gender desk effectively addressed violence against children. Teachers and students reported increased awareness and a reduction in violence, while school administrators observed improved student attitudes and behaviors, creating a safer, more inclusive environment. Specialized training for gender desk officers enhanced their ability to sensitively engage with affected children. Positive feedback from teachers, students, and administrators underscored the success of these initiatives. The study concluded that maintaining and enhancing these achievements is crucial. Continuous support and development of the programs are essential, providing a strong foundation for further efforts to create violence-free educational environments. To sustain and expand the success of these programs, the study recommends ongoing training and seminars for gender desk officers, strengthened collaboration with stakeholders, and targeted efforts to reach marginalized students. Continuous research and evaluation are vital for assessing long-term impact and identifying areas for improvement, ensuring the creation of safe school environments.

Resisting the binary: reconciling victimhood and agency in discourses of sexual violence

Queer, post-colonial and Black feminist scholars and activists have long cautioned against the dangerous exclusions and complicities entailed in even the best-intentioned efforts to counter sexual violence. The rhetoric of protecting women from sexual violence is frequently and effectively invoked in order to rehabilitate old colonial projects and justify new ones that persecute sexual dissidents, police gender, sexual and caste transgressions and re-inscribe neoliberal and neo-conservative rationalities across the globe. This article argues that many of the exclusionary, violent and coercive consequences of efforts to protect women from sexual violence are rooted in mischaracterisations or mis-descriptions of the subject of sexual violence, and enabled by particular (mis)orientations towards this subject. Specifically, I suggest that the imagination and representation of the subject of sexual violence is subtended by a politically dangerous and conceptually untenable victim/agent binary. Mediated by rationalities of caste, race, class and religion, women are imagined either as vulnerable victims in need of protection, or as capable (even culpable) agents, but never simultaneously both. The failure to reconcile victimhood and agency within discourses of sexual violence is precisely the condition of possibility for a range of violent, exclusionary and regulatory outcomes. This article tracks the effects of the victim/agent binary in dominant responses to sexual violence, before assembling the foundations from which to rethink victimhood and agency away from their binary orthodoxy, drawing centrally on the radical subjectivity of pain.

Femmephobia versus gender norms: Examining women’s responses to competing and contradictory gender messages

While women experience pressure to be more feminine/less masculine, recent years have documented their simultaneous experiences of feeling pressured to be more masculine/less feminine. This phenomenon can be linked to the concept of femmephobia – the way femininity is devalued and regulated across bodies, identities, and various social locations. Despite the accumulating research documenting the existence of femmephobia across identities, how women respond to these experiences remains unexplored. Thus, the current study examined women’s ( N = 97) responses to femmephobia. Participants were asked to describe whether (and how) they attempted to modify any of the feminine expressions they felt were targeted in the femmephobic incident they reported. Results of the thematic analysis supported the hypothesized response types of amplification, suppression, and no change to feminine expressions following the femmephobic incident. We found that women overwhelmingly suppressed their femininity in response to femmephobia. Strikingly, while some women reported not making any changes, almost none of the respondents reported amplifying their feminine expressions in response to a femmephobic incident (and the few who did were all LGBTQ+). We theorize these findings in the context of women’s gender policing more broadly, specifically the tension between gender norms (pressure to be more feminine/less masculine) and femmephobia (pressure to be less feminine/more masculine). We argue that the frequency of suppressing femininity in response to femmephobia suggests that, when faced with contradictory gender messages, femmephobia may be more influential than considered by previous research.

Do Women Prefer In-Group Police Officers? Survey and Experimental Evidence From India

Several nations have enacted gender reforms in policing, many of which are premised on the notion that women favor female officers, especially in the context of tackling violence against women (VAW). We investigate this topic in India. Evidence from the first nationally representative survey on policing ( N ≈ 15,000) demonstrates high levels of bias against policewomen, including among women and VAW complainants. To estimate the causal effect of police gender on officer evaluations, we design an unusual video experiment with assistance from the news corporation New Delhi Television ( N ≈ 1000). We find that policewomen are not generally preferred to policemen, and citizens have significantly unfavorable attitudes toward female officers when seen tackling VAW rather than non-VAW cases. These negative ratings are driven by female respondents. We highlight certain context-specific explanations and note that the manner in which policewomen are typecast may undercut the positive implications associated with representation. Our study is an example of shared identity increasing mistrust, and it expands the discussion about citizens using ascriptive characteristics to make inferences about politicians to include front-line bureaucrats like police officers.

Gender Policing in Girls’ and Women’s Sports

This paper will show that sporting institutions that police the boundaries of women’s sports do so to keep sportswomen constrained in ways that men’s sports and male athletes are not. This paper explores three methods that sporting establishments have used to police and constrain women’s sports and sportswomen: the exclusion of women and the creation of different rules for men’s and women’s sports, the policing of international sporting administrations of which women can compete in women’s sports by invoking the specter of “gender fraud”, and the exclusion of trans women from sports by relying on conservative Christian notions of a gender binary motivated by a similar strain of homophobia that animated previous efforts to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage. Taken together, these three threads reveal that gender policing in women’s sports is not and has never been about “fairness” but about preserving heteropatriarchal systems of power that position women as weak and inherently less athletic than men.

Kant’s approach to alterity and women

Accusing Kant of ‘sexism’ conceals what the real issues are: Kant was primarily making comments about women in his attempt to do popular philosophy and empirical science. Being an amateur at the empirical sciences, he actually was engaged in promoting gender norms for women especially. He was also concerned about international males conforming to the gender norms of working and self-governance. In addition, Kant engaged in the activity of gender policing and stereotyping women. His comments on women scholars and his treatment of Maria von Herbert illustrate these behaviors. When one assesses Kant’s distinctions between males and females it illustrates that he wants women to conform to gender roles, but this does not mean women cannot as rational human beings conform their actions to the moral law. What it does mean is that they probably will not conform their actions to the moral law, since conforming to the gender role of a woman in 18th century Germany was not conducive to self-governance. We can conclude anecdotally from Kant’s experience with Maria von Herbert that one’s dignity does not reside in gender norm conformity, nor in being under moral laws, but rather in working outside the home and acquiring a meaningful identity.

Child defilement in Kakamega county, Kenya and related factors

In Kakamega County, child defilement is a public health and social problem, affecting many children. The prevalence of child defilement case in the County is significantly high. Research on the phenomenon of child defilement appears to be underdeveloped; but still ongoing. The trigger factors on the child defilement phenomenon seem to be linked on well known social issues. It is against this backdrop that the present study sought to establish the extent to which child defilement is associated with the prevailing socio-cultural and economic factors, substance abuse and family history. A descriptive survey design was employed to purposively pick and randomly select a sampling frame of 86 respondents comprising of 44 Gender Police Officers, 27 Social Workers, 9 Children Officers and 6 Probation Officers. Of the sampled respondents, seventy (70) of them were interviewed using a semi- structured questionnaire. Despite this scarcity of studies, this study empirically allowed the researcher to confirm that poor rural family attributes including socio-cultural factors related to past abuse (parental personal difficulties, past history, poor family structure and functioning as well as the characteristics of the environment that children grew from) could be associated to an increased risk for their child defilement. The study established that child defilement is a significant problem that exposes children to early pregnancies and marriages, HIV/AIDS and psychological trauma. Equally, majority of the defilements were perpetrated by persons known to the victims, namely family members and /or neighbours. Consequently, high levels of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse and ignorance of the illegality of the vices appeared to be key challenges in the fight against child defilement. It was therefore, concluded that child defilement can be fought more effectively by strengthening the existing, counselling, legal, child protection, rescue and gender recovery services.

Advancing Folkloristics

Advancing Folkloristics

Challenging Ciscentric Feminist Margins: A South African Study on Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Black Trans Women

Feminist discourses around the scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) have historically prioritized the voices and contextualities of cisgender heterosexual women, often to the exclusion of trans persons. In light of the continual invisibility of black trans persons and in particular black trans women in anti-GBV activism, this paper explores black trans women’s experiences of violence in post-apartheid South Africa. The study was undertaken from a transfeminist framework that asserts that the stories and histories of trans persons are central to the development of trans epistemologies within an inclusive gender liberation framework. The study followed a narrative methodological approach. Unstructured individual interviews were conducted with eight black trans women living in South Africa. Narratives of gender policing and punitive sexual violence in addition to narratives of cissexism as well as of the paradoxical hypervisibility and invisibility of black trans positions revealed violence meted against black trans women in South Africa as structural, grounded on a patriarchal matrix of cisgender power representing trans women as devalued others. Apartheid legacies of racialised economic marginalisation manifest as bearing a strong mediating role in shaping black trans women’s sustained vulnerability to violence. By addressing anti-trans violence as a feminist concern, this paper disrupts the ciscentricism of feminism, enabling more nuanced and inclusive constructions of GBV.

Effectiveness of Police Gender Desks in the Protection of the Victims of Gender Based Violence in Tanzania: A Case of Ilemela District

This study discussed the Effectiveness of Police Gender Desks in the Protection of the Victims of Gender Based Violence in Ilemela District, Tanzania. The study sought to determine if the gender desks were effective since the GBV cases were on the rise. Ilemela district was used as a case study strategy because it has several gender desks and it has a many forms of violence incidences compared to other districts around Mwanza Region. The study used a qualitative approach, where semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion were employed to collect data. Moreover, the study was conducted by using descriptive research design to draw different perception of the participant and used thematic analysis to analyze the obtained information. The study findings reveal that, even though Police Gender desk in Ilemela district was formed to serve women and children, who might not be aware of their rights, either because of ignorance, religion or fear of their community, majority of victims reported to get good services and support from gender desk police officers. Participant interviewed reported that Police gender desk at Ilemela District provides good services to the victim however they had not been effective to prevent and combat women gender based violence due to various challenges which include fear of the women to report the incidences, ignorance, norms, tradition, and religions. The study recommends the Government, NGOs and other stakeholders to provide adequate knowledge to members that help them to disclose their problems hence get assistance.