This qualitative research explores the complex and dynamic ways in which eight hospital security ... more This qualitative research explores the complex and dynamic ways in which eight hospital security men engage in hegemonic masculine practices that subordinate the gender identities of security women and marginalized men. These intensive, in-depth interviews reveal that alpha male status is accomplished through routine demonstrations of physicality and dominance over mental health patients and subordinated guards who present a feminine or queer gender identity. Security officers who resist the established codes of masculine conduct are excluded from social circles, and culturally devalued by their hypermasculine peers and superiors. Overall, this research calls for the revision of hospital security recruitment and training initiatives that privilege military background and skills, and invites scholars to give voice to the gendered voices of security women, gay men, and nursing staff.
Power and the Psychiatric Apparatus: Repression, Transformation, and Assistance, 2014
Departing from the first author’s lived experiences as a private security guard at an Ottawa psyc... more Departing from the first author’s lived experiences as a private security guard at an Ottawa psychiatric facility, this qualitative research examines how the performance of masculinity shapes and contributes to the coercive ways in which eight hospital guards (all former colleagues) manage, control and interact with involuntary mental health patients. These eight semi-structured interviews are framed by Raewyn Connell’s theoretical concept of hegemonic masculinity, as well as the available literature on gender and masculinity within security, prison, police and military institutions. We find that the struggle for power is gendered and alpha masculine status entangles the relations, discourses and associated practices of psychiatric ward nurses, patients, and guards – the outcome of which is ward reliance on punitive mechanisms of control. More specifically, this institutional setting fosters the reproduction of masculinity either through physical/chemical force, punishment, intimidation, or repeated expressions of ambivalence towards feminized displays of compassion, sympathy, and concern for the care of patients. Our findings call for the revision of hospital management strategies that privilege staff safety and ward control at the cost of the bodily, legal and human rights of patients, and steer future research to consider the voices and lived experiences of female security agents and senior hospital management staffs.
This qualitative research explores the complex and dynamic ways in which eight hospital security ... more This qualitative research explores the complex and dynamic ways in which eight hospital security men engage in hegemonic masculine practices that subordinate the gender identities of security women and marginalized men. These intensive, in-depth interviews reveal that alpha male status is accomplished through routine demonstrations of physicality and dominance over mental health patients and subordinated guards who present a feminine or queer gender identity. Security officers who resist the established codes of masculine conduct are excluded from social circles, and culturally devalued by their hypermasculine peers and superiors. Overall, this research calls for the revision of hospital security recruitment and training initiatives that privilege military background and skills, and invites scholars to give voice to the gendered voices of security women, gay men, and nursing staff.
Power and the Psychiatric Apparatus: Repression, Transformation, and Assistance, 2014
Departing from the first author’s lived experiences as a private security guard at an Ottawa psyc... more Departing from the first author’s lived experiences as a private security guard at an Ottawa psychiatric facility, this qualitative research examines how the performance of masculinity shapes and contributes to the coercive ways in which eight hospital guards (all former colleagues) manage, control and interact with involuntary mental health patients. These eight semi-structured interviews are framed by Raewyn Connell’s theoretical concept of hegemonic masculinity, as well as the available literature on gender and masculinity within security, prison, police and military institutions. We find that the struggle for power is gendered and alpha masculine status entangles the relations, discourses and associated practices of psychiatric ward nurses, patients, and guards – the outcome of which is ward reliance on punitive mechanisms of control. More specifically, this institutional setting fosters the reproduction of masculinity either through physical/chemical force, punishment, intimidation, or repeated expressions of ambivalence towards feminized displays of compassion, sympathy, and concern for the care of patients. Our findings call for the revision of hospital management strategies that privilege staff safety and ward control at the cost of the bodily, legal and human rights of patients, and steer future research to consider the voices and lived experiences of female security agents and senior hospital management staffs.
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Papers by J. Kilty