Gendered Experiences of Racialised Policing

Abstract

A comparative analysis of the ways in which Black and mixed race men and Black and mixed race women experience and negotiate police contact in different contexts allows for a relational understanding of how oppression operates at the intersection of race and gender. This analysis highlights how intersecting oppressions of race and gender are organised, in relation to structures of power bound up with hegemonic forms of white masculinity. Through an examination of women’s experiences of the police, this chapter shows that stereotypes attributed to Black women shape their experiences of police contact both as suspect and victims of crime. However, these stereotypes are not as inextricably tied up in discourses of criminality as those attributed to Black men. It will argue that some Black and mixed-race women are able to perform preferred versions of femininity, in the context of police contact. This has the capacity to negotiate race to some extent in the police encounter. Black men cannot perform a more desirable version of masculinity, they are the perpetual suspect and pose the ultimate threat.