Malochet, Guillaume

Women in the Men’s House - 2007.


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This article focuses on feminization of surveillance staff in men’s prisons. It turns feminization into an exceptional observation tool of gender dynamics in social relations in prison. On the one hand, it shows that female guards’ arrival offers a useful magnifying glass that reveals organizational mechanisms through which male domination prevails in the world of prisons. On the other hand, it sheds light on how feminization reveals the principles and representations of this “men’s house”, and how this job and this space are organized according to necessarily gendered security requirements. This analysis thus links three levels that are often kept apart: organizational principles observed in prisons, social interactions that are born there, and prevailing gendered relations.