Sexism without sexists: Gender-blind frames in police work

This article examines policewomen's experiences of work in the Singapore Police Force (SPF). In recent years, female officers in the SPF have accomplished many “firsts,” alluding to women not only succeeding in entering the male-dominated profession but attaining equal status as their male counterparts. Based on in-depth interviews and content analysis, however, policewomen in the SPF are still confronting various forms of gender discrimination, with female officers navigating masculine norms, a gendered division of labor, and sexual harassment at work. How can we explain this disjuncture between the SPF's rhetoric of gender neutrality and policewomen's reality of gender inequality? We argue that first, the SPF as an organization, and some policewomen themselves, adopt gender-blind frames to interpret any forms of gender discrimination, by insisting that they do not see gender or that gender does not matter in the organization. Second, sexist practices have evolved from overt to covert forms of gender discrimination. Because of this shift in how gender discrimination manifests in the organization, the SPF and some policewomen do not perceive those practices as sexist but as normal, everyday language and behavior. This article seeks to identify those amorphous forms of sexism enacted upon policewomen that, in turn, reflect the recursive relationship between individual-level interactions and structurally embedded occupational practices.