Once an 'Ideal Worker', Always an 'Ideal Worker': The Impervious Status of Police Who Become Fathers


Danielle Thompson, University of Waterloo

The culture of hegemonic masculinity that characterizes policing organizations has long disadvantaged women - especially mothers - due to their inability to satisfy the characteristics of the “ideal worker” – one who is ostensibly male and has a limited role in parental responsibilities (Acker, 1990; Agocs et al., 2015; Langan et al., 2017; Langan et al., 2019; Sanders et al., 2022). A robust literature has chronicled the ways in which women police who are mothers, that is “police mothers” (Agocs et al., 2015), are seen as being unfit for police work (Marsh, 2019; Yu and Rauhaus, 2019) and ill-suited for promotional opportunities (Silvestri, 2018), as they navigate the male-centric workplace and carry the bulk of domestic labour and childcare responsibilities at home. Although the experiences of police mothers have been well-documented, there is a paucity of research on the experiences of police who are fathers even though general studies of police men have captured their experiences. Research highlights a shift in the cultural ideologies of what it means to be a father (e.g., Duxbury, Bardoel, and Halinski, 2020) in that there has been a movement away from the traditional conceptualization of fathers as ‘breadwinners’ first and foremost, towards an image of the “involved father” who is more nurturing and present in the lives of his children (Humberd et al., 2015). Research that has examined the implications of being an involved father reveal how this can create challenges in the workplace - especially for fathers who take parental leave. They can face stigma for violating gender norms (Pettigrew and Duncan 2020), and for being viewed as less committed to their jobs (Andrés Fernández-Cornejo et al., 2019). Within the context of police organizations, the question arises as to whether, how, and to what extent police men who become fathers (“police fathers”) will be seen as (un)fit for police work. We wondered: (1) What has been the nature of police men’s experiences as fathers in various police services? (2) Whether, how, and to what extent do police fathers ‘fit’ with the notion of the “ideal worker?” (3) How have organizations, supervisors, and colleagues responded in the workplace to them as fathers? (4) And how do the experiences of police fathers compare to the research findings on the experiences of police mothers with respect to ‘fit’ with the construct of the “ideal worker?” To address these research questions, between July and September of 2020 we conducted 18 Zoom interviews with police fathers about their experiences within Canadian police organizations. Our approach to data collection and analysis was informed by Charmaz’s (2014) constructivist grounded theory which allowed us to seek thick descriptions and detailed narratives of participants’ experiences. Our organization of the findings from the interviews was shaped, in part, by a chronological framework that emerged in the second author’s previous research on the experiences of police mothers (see Langan et al., 2017). Based on the police fathers data, we adapted this framework to organize our findings in terms of fathers’ experiences at work before the baby was born (“anticipating and announcing fatherhood at work”) and then after the baby was born (“managing fatherhood and work”). Our analysis of the findings reveals that policing organizations, for the most part, responded positively when fathers announced fatherhood, took parental leave, and returned from parental leave. When they become fathers, police men are able to still be seen as ‘fitting with’ the concept of the ideal worker - being a father does not preclude them from that ideal. This is in contrast to the experience of police mothers who face serious barriers in the workplace that render them unfit and at odds with the concept of the “ideal worker.” We argue that the flexible and negotiable nature of being a father – due to what we found to be their relatively limited role in childcare responsibilities and domestic work - allows police fathers to fulfill cultural and organizational expectations of prioritizing work over family. Additionally, we argue that the differing experiences of fathers and mothers in the workplace reflect the pervasive hegemonic masculinity within police organizations that exalts fatherhood as a ‘badge of honour,’ but discriminates against women when they become mothers.

Non-presenting author: Debra Langan, Wilfrid Laurier University

This paper will be presented at the following session: