Blog 18

I definitely agree that the norm becomes masculine when institutions attempt to establish gender-neutral policies and practices. That happens in a lot of circumstances, but I can see where it is especially a problem in prisons. Honestly, when I think about prisons I think about men and that is it and in a way, since I am a woman, I think it is a complement. I can see how women actually in prison would not appreciate it, but once something is looked at a certain way, that way being masculine; it is hard to change that image. The way I look at it when setting policies you have to set them very high and you have to set them so that not one person is able to find a way around those policies so naturally you have to set them towards males because you have to make them indestructible to both genders and naturally it is going to be easier for men to find ways around policies if they are set to women’s standards than vice versa.


Many policies are practices are meant to be gender-neutral, but in the end it turns into gender inequality. For example, height and weight requirements, mandating promoted workers, and transfers. When it comes to being promoted, a lot of promotions occur somewhere else, like in another state and that makes it difficult for women to just pick up and leave because a lot of them have families. Same for just wanting to be promoted in general, a lot of women reject promotion because it takes more time away from their families. One white women said, “I love what I do, God, I’ve worked every profession that you could think of, but I love it. I love what I do. But it takes too much time away from my family. But if I was career-minded, I would definitely already have been trying to go up for rank.” (Britton 197)