Public security female workers at the coast of Paraná, Brazil: intersections of gender, work, violence(s), and health

31 Oct 2022 CategoryURG discrimination, racism and ableism Author Umain Recommends

Originally published here.

The subject of public security is rarely tackled by academia or the Public Health field, especially when the issue at hand is the living conditions of female public security professionals as human beings in possession of subjectivity, not robots who provide security for our society1. These pro-fessionals are more exposed to the risk of violent deaths and have higher vulnerability to some mental and physical diseases, as pointed out by current research initiatives1-6.

Some articles discuss the risks associated with careers in public security, broadening concepts of risk and security, as well as valuing police officers inside and outside their institution7.Curiosity on this matter was the starting point for the present study, which focused on the perspective of female public security profession-als and their specialties:

  1. Military Police Offi-cers, exposed to daily risks, subject to disciplinary and hierarchy commandments, sharing a feeling of belonging and identification with their job, many times connected to their uniform; 2
  2.  Civil Police Officer, with no strict hierarchy, execute crime investigation tasks and investigate crim-inal offenses;
  3. Correctional Officers, assigned to protect civilian society and to perform correc-tional treatment, while watching over and keep-ing custody of prisoners, as determined by legal instruments. This is based simultaneously on punishing and resocializing criminals, making use of defensive tactics in their daily routine8,9.

The present study aimed to analyze and re-flect upon the reality of their activities, high-lighting daily exposition to violence, seeking to understand the unique details of this seldom ex-plored group of women, and how these women relate to one another and to men. This study emerged from the main author’s intrinsic motivation after working six years as a public security professional, prior to entering ac-ademic life.

To understand the dilemmas and challenges these women face in public security, it is critical to understand the gender analysis category. Joan Scott10,11 proposes a view of gender as a corner-stone of social relations, built upon the perceived differences between sexes, with gender being an initial form of assigning meaning to power rela-tions. The author uses gender as an analysis cate-gory, in the same way we use class, race/ethnicity, generation, and their meanings.

On the other hand, Christine Delphy12 argues that gender is a social element which constitutes sex, pointing out that gender is not an effect of biological differences, but rather that sex is so-cially built because of gender. Thus, differences between men and women are meaningless ana-tomical facts without the present gender arrange-ments, which recognize and level the differences between men and women.

The author suggests that transforming such difference into inequality is a social act.Joan W. Scott10,11 states she is bothered when definitions take gender as a familiar methodolo-gy, instead of a form of questioning. She argues gender is an open-ended issue. Perhaps the key to advancing through these dilemmas would be to further comprehend the different forms of op-pression and exclusion, avoiding prescriptions, questioning and keeping open the gender pro-posal13,14.Intersections between gender and violence are also discussed by a number of female au-thors15,16, including not only physical and sexual violence but also psychological violence, such as humiliation, social isolation, intimidation, ver-bal violence, among others. The different man-ifestations of gender violence are a very complex topic, which requires study and dialog between different fields of knowledge, especially social and health sciences, making Public Health a priv-ileged space for such.In the present days, violence is among the main causes of morbidity and mortality in many countries, including Brazil17.

Brazil is among the countries with the highest murder index in the planet, even higher in regards to the wom-en murder index (femicide), as reported by the SINAN18 (Case Reporting Information System) reports and the series of studies which originat-ed the Mapa da Violência (Map of Violence)17. Therefore, reflecting upon this problem is funda-mental, as it presents itself as a major challenge to Public Health. Roberto da Matta19 states that violence is an intrinsic part of the human condi-tion that bears positive and negative facets, which vary from one society to another.

However, this setting implies an agenda for public security, un-folding into several issues for professionals of this area who struggle with this problem in their daily lives. In view of this, this study aimed to perform an ethnographic study of a group of women who work in the field of public security. It aimed particularly to explore the issues of gender and the way these women are exposed to violence, as well as its relationship with the health-disease process, taking the coast of Parana as the region of analysis. It is believed that the insertion of the topic of public security in academia could sub-sidize new public policies which cater to gender specificities. By bringing these professionals and their struggles into the spotlight, we hope to pro-vide these professionals with better work and life conditions.

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