Post #13

Britton’s opening comments in At Work in the Iron Cage play off society’s belief that the job of a prison guard is for a man.

As Britton says, when we imagine a prison guard we almost automatically envision “a hulking man in uniform carrying a nightstick or even a gun… brutal and sadistic… someone who would be able to deal easily with unruly inmates… to meet violence with violence.”

These views of a “typical” prison guard are completely mirrored in popular media. Britton references films like Penitentiary, Cool Hand Luke, Brubaker and ConAir which all reflect our stereotypical view of a prison guard. Look at the remake of The Longest Yard, in which Adam Sandler’s character puts together a football team with fellow inmates to play against a team comprised of the prison guards. All the prison guards are huge, bulky, heavily muscular men.

The problem here is that all these images are of men. Women are pretty much nowhere to be found, even though the number of female prison guards rose in the last decade. According to Britton, as of 1995, 19% of all correctional officers were women.

The media portrays female prison guards as having some of those aforementioned male characteristics. They seem to be overweight, more masculine, tough women. They exhibit what we would say are masculine traits. These images are far and few between in popular media because as a society it is generally accepted that the position of a correctional officer is a traditionally male job.

The job of a prison guard is considered to be dangerous, and because of the violence associated with the prisoners help in penitentiaries, it has been accepted that prisons are not the place for women to work. Women are not supposed to be violent or associated with violence, according to the hegemonic views we have of women.

I feel like there can be differences between images of male correctional officers in male prisons and those in female prisons. Male officers in female facilities are generally feared because of many reports having to do with sexual abuse. So the image that comes to mind of these men is that of a sexual abuser. Women are fearful of their guards and retaliation that may come if they report sexual misconduct. Personally, I would like to see more women as correctional officers in female facilities.