Gender and Education

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‘She's alpha male’: transgressive gender

performances in the probation ‘classroom’

Emma Perry

To cite this article: Emma Perry (2013) ‘She's alpha male’: transgressive gender
performances in the probation ‘classroom’, Gender and Education, 25:4, 396-412, DOI:
10.1080/09540253.2012.756855

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2012.756855

Published online: 30 Jan 2013.

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Gender and Education, 2013
Vol. 25, No. 4, 396– 412, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2012.756855

‘She’s alpha male’: transgressive gender performances in the

probation ‘classroom’
Emma Perry∗

Department of Education, Roehampton University, London, UK

(Received 25 November 2011; final version received 28 November 2012)

The past decade has seen an exponential rise in the popularity of cognitive –
behavioural programmes as a means of rehabilitating ‘offenders’. Although the
programmes have been evaluated by a number of researchers, very little
qualitative work exists, particularly with regard to the discourses mobilised by
practitioners, and the production of gendered subjectivities in this setting.
Consequently, this article focuses on one woman, ‘Michelle’, who attended an
Aggression Replacement Training programme as part of her probation sentence.
By drawing on Francis’ [2010. Re/theorizing gender: Female masculinity and
male femininity in the classroom. Gender and Education] notion of gender
monoglossia and heteroglossia I aim to provide a nuanced account of Michelle’s
seemingly straightforward ‘performance’ of ‘female masculinity’ [Halberstam,
J. 1998. Female masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press]. Through an
analysis of the discourses mobilised by practitioners I also demonstrate that
within this discursive environment the rehabilitation of female ‘offenders’
continues to be one of conformity to traditional ‘feminine’ gender norms as well
as a desistance from crime.
Keywords: post-structuralist theory; femininities; identities; post-compulsory or
further education; women

Introduction
Crime has traditionally been, and continues to be, a strikingly gendered phenomenon
(Messerschmidt 1993; Naffine 2003; Farrington and Painter 2006). Since the 1970s,
media reports have anxiously debated the rising female crime rate, often viewing the
violent behaviour of women as a negative side effect of feminism (Chesney-Lind
2006). However, feminist researchers have argued that this rise in the female crime
rate reflects changes in policing and sentencing, rather than the behaviour of women
themselves (Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe 2007). They have also pointed out that the
media’s preoccupation with women’s criminal behaviour tends to obscure the fact
that the vast majority of crime continues to be committed by men (Chesney-Lind
2006). Over 95% of the UK prison population is male (Ministry of Justice 2010),
but although policy-makers have recognised this disparity (Farrington and Painter
2006), there continues to be an underlying assumption that criminal behaviour perpe-
trated by men is, at least to some extent, considered ‘normal’ (Naffine 2003). By
contrast, women who break the law have traditionally been considered to be ‘doubly
deviant’ (Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe 2007) through their transgression of both the
∗
Email: eperry100@yahoo.co.uk

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Gender and Education 397

law and accepted gender norms. For example, Heidensohn (1996) and Steward (2006)
have argued that women who do not conform to accepted standards of monogamous,
heterosexual behaviour are treated in an excessively punitive manner by the courts.
Condry (2006) has also highlighted the shame and stigmatisation experienced by rela-
tives of women who have committed serious offences.
‘Second wave’ feminist criminologists such as Smart (1977) have made major con-
tributions to this area of research by drawing attention to the assumption that women
who break the law are biologically or psychologically ‘abnormal’. More recently, a
variety of feminist work has accumulated within the field. Studies have addressed
aspects of criminology as diverse as women’s responses to imprisonment (Carlen
2002, 2008), involvement in violent offending (Miller 2001), and their experiences
as victims (Walklate 2007). Although some excellent work has been conducted in
this area, gender continues to be under-theorised by criminologists (Heidensohn and
Gelsthorpe 2007; Rock 2007). Very little qualitative work exists that addresses
women’s ‘rehabilitation’, especially with regard to the experiences of women who
are sentenced to cognitive–behavioural programmes in the community. Research indi-
cates that women are more likely to commit acquisitive offences than violent crime and
as such receive cautions and short community sentences (Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe
2007; Newburn 2007). However, the number of women being prosecuted in the UK
continues to be relatively small compared with the number of men (Newburn 2007).
Thus, women are likely to find themselves as the only female group member on a
programme in a local probation setting.
Within the field of education research, studies have explored how girls negotiate
and challenge dominant productions of masculinity in the classroom (Skelton 2002),
and have discussed the wide-ranging ways they produce their own gendered subjectiv-
ities in educational settings (Reay 2001; Jackson 2006; Renold 2007). However, within
the field of criminology, very few researchers have made use of feminist and post-
structuralist theoretical insights in order to enhance understandings of the complex
and myriad ways that women construct and negotiate their gendered identities within
a probation learning environment, the specifics of which are discussed in more detail
below. This article seeks to draw on these insights, specifically Francis’ (2008a,
2010) notion of gender ‘monoglossia’ and ‘heteroglossia’, in order to explore how pro-
bation practitioners constructed female offenders who were sentenced to a cognitive–
behavioural programme. More specifically, it investigates how one female group
member negotiated the Aggression Replacement Training (ART) programme,
through her transgressive performances of gender.1

Cognitive–behavioural programmes and community sentences:

an introduction
Since the election of the ‘New Labour’ government in 1997, a range of cognitive–
behavioural programmes has been implemented by the Prisons and Probation
Service on a national scale as part of the ‘What Works’ criminal justice agenda
(Mair 2004). Drawing heavily on social learning theory (Bandura 1977), the pro-
grammes view the individual in pedagogic terms rather than as a client in need of
therapy (Goldstein, Glick, and Gibbs 1998). As such, they aim to ‘teach’ offenders
new skills in order to change their behaviour and reduce the likelihood of re-offending.
Cognitive–behavioural theories of crime assume that an ‘offender’ will differ from that
of a ‘non-offender’ with regard to their thought processes, which in turn will increase
398 E. Perry

the likelihood of them behaving in a ‘criminal’ way (Clark 2000). Implicit in this the-
orising is the underpinning principle that if behaviour and thinking patterns are learnt
during childhood, then they can also be ‘unlearnt’ or modified later in life. For example,
Ross, Fabiano, and Ewles (1988) have argued that many offenders experience ‘devel-
opmental delays’ with regard to the acquisition of their cognitive skills:

A considerable number of offenders have deficits in the ability to conceptualise the con-
sequences of their behaviour and are unable to use means-end reasoning to achieve their
goals. Often the offender is concretistic, action oriented, non-reflective and impulsive.
Many offenders have not progressed beyond an egocentric state of cognitive development
and are unable to understand the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of other people. (Ross,
Fabiano, and Ewles 1988, 30)

Observations such as this led to the subsequent development of the ‘cognitive deficit’
model (Ross and Fabiano 1990) which draws together ‘deficits’ previously identified
by other researchers into a complete model of criminal tendencies (Clark 2000).
Ross and Fabiano (1990) therefore claim that ‘offenders’ are more likely to be impul-
sive, egocentric, rigid in their views, and poor at problem-solving, perspective taking,
and critical reasoning.
The cognitive deficit model has been extremely influential with regard to the devel-
opment of cognitive–behavioural programmes. For example, the ART programme,
developed by Goldstein, Glick, and Gibbs (1998), is currently used in Britain for
adults who have convictions for violent offences that have been motivated by anger
or ‘impulsivity’. The programme consists of 18 sessions, each lasting approximately
2 h and containing three main elements: anger control, social skills, and moral reason-
ing. The anger control element focuses on the perceived impulsivity deficit, and intro-
duces an anger control sequence, which is essentially a series of steps designed to assist
the group member to reflect on their thoughts and emotions, and generate alternatives to
behaving in a violent or aggressive manner. The social skills element of the programme,
developed from social learning theory (Bandura 1977), promotes assertive as opposed
to aggressive social interactions. For example, it focuses on aspects of personal inter-
actions such as non-verbal cues, eye contact, body language, and tone of voice. The
final component of the programme, moral reasoning, draws on Kohlberg’s (1969) the-
ories of development to argue that ‘offenders’’ levels of moral reasoning are ‘delayed’
or ‘immature’ (Goldstein, Glick, and Gibbs 1998, 99). Therefore, moral debates are
included within sessions, with the aim of developing a consideration of other people
and the implications of one’s actions on society.
In a non-custodial setting, a programme can form one of the ‘requirements’ of a
community order or a suspended sentence order. If an individual has been assessed
to be suitable for a programme, having first been classified with regard to their level
of ‘risk’, she/he will be asked whether they would be willing to attend a programme.
Consent is not needed for programme attendance, although the willingness to
‘comply’ with a community order may prevent the individual from being sentenced
to custody (National Probation Directorate 2005). Those sentenced to a programme
requirement are also ordered to attend one-to-one supervision with a Probation
Officer and may also have other aspects to their sentence, such as community punish-
ment. Attendance is compulsory on probation; so if a probationer fails to attend an
appointment, such as a programme session, without providing ‘acceptable’ reasons
for their absence (for example, a letter from a doctor), the order is said to be in
‘breach’ (National Probation Directorate 2005). At this stage, the court can choose to
 Gender and Education 399

amend the original sentence by making it more onerous, for example, by adding further
requirements. It can also re-sentence, which may involve custody, even where the orig-
inal offence was not punishable by imprisonment (Mair and Mills 2009). As such, pro-
bationers sentenced to a programme in a community setting are compelled to attend and
‘comply’ with their order, as failure to do so is likely to involve further punitive
sanctions.
Although the programmes are underpinned by psychological theories, the dis-
courses surrounding them are largely pedagogic in nature (Mair 2004). The extent to
which the programmes are ‘educative’ or ‘therapeutic’ raises some interesting and ethi-
cally problematic questions regarding definitions of education and psychological treat-
ment (particularly when viewed in relation to the compulsory nature of the
programmes). Due to the emphasis on social learning theory (Bandura 1977), the
language of ‘learning’ has been used in relation to the programmes. Meanwhile,
psychological terminology, including the word ‘therapy’ itself, has been rejected
(Hollin 2006). For example, Clark (2000) suggests that probationers attending the pro-
grammes are individuals ‘who should be taught rather than treated’ (p. 17). Although
the term ‘psycho-educational’ has been frequently used in relation to the programmes
(Goldstein, Glick, and Gibbs 1998). Biesta (2007) has suggested that this is ethically
problematic. He argues against education being seen as a psychological ‘treatment’
or ‘intervention’ as this relies on a causal model of teaching, whereby practitioners
act to bring about specific pre-established outcomes.
There are evident tensions between the different educational, psychotherapeutic,
and criminological paradigms discussed here and it was not the intention of the
study to resolve these. Instead, a post-structuralist theoretical framework was
adopted as it allowed for an investigation of the variety of complex and interconnecting
discourses mobilised by policy-makers, practitioners, and probationers in relation to
this environment.

Feminist critiques of the programmes

The field of feminism has always encompassed differing perspectives and this is
reflected in the range of literature regarding female offenders (see, for example,
Smart 1977; Naffine 1997; Miller 2002; Walklate 2007). As gender theory developed,
feminist criminologists began to ask what it was about the social construction of mas-
culinity that led to criminal behaviour (Gelsthorpe 2003) and why female offenders
tended to be positioned in essentialist ways (Miller 2001). Although a variety of
feminist works from social constructionist and post-structuralist perspectives have infil-
trated most areas of criminological study, Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe (2007) have
argued that researchers working in the ‘sociology of punishment’ have tended to
ignore the gendered dimensions of social control. They claim that further studies
need to take place that address questions of agency, identity, and resistance, and
explore how both women and men resist strategies of social control through their gen-
dered identities. Similarly, the limited amount of research that currently exists with
regard to gender and the ‘What Works’ rehabilitation agenda of the probation
service has led Farrant (2006) to claim that gender fails to be sufficiently problematised
within studies of criminal justice organisations and that further work of a feminist post-
structuralist nature needs to take place in this area.
Consequently, in this section it is my intention to address the work of a relatively
small but significant group of feminist post-structuralist researchers who have
400 E. Perry

specifically critiqued the programmes. The most vociferous critics of the programmes
include Shaw and Hannah-Moffat (2000, 2004), Kemshall (2002), Kendall (2002,
2004), and Carlen (2002, 2008). Kemshall (2002) and Kendall (2002) draw on
Rose’s (1996, 2000) ideas relating to neo-liberal ‘responsibilisation’, claiming that
the rehabilitation techniques of the programmes locate blame with individuals rather
than social structures. ‘Risk factors’ such as the psychologised concepts of ‘distorted
cognitions’ or ‘poor social skills’ seek to focus on individuals whilst ignoring many
of the wider social factors that lead to crime (Kemshall 2002). Social and economic
needs are consequently redefined as psychologically rooted ‘cognitive deficits’
(Kemshall 2002; Kendall 2002). Moreover, the ‘cognitive deficit’ model pathologises
and ‘others’ individuals by explicitly positioning ‘offenders’ as ‘non-reflective’,
‘impulsive’, and ‘egocentric’ (Ross, Fabiano, and Ewles 1988, 30). Kendall (2002)
has drawn attention to some of these issues in her analysis of the government’s Strategy
for Women Offenders (2000):

There is no excuse for crime, whatever a person’s background or experience. However,

the characteristics of women prisoners suggest that experiences such as poverty, abuse
and drug addiction lead some women to believe that their options are limited. Many
offending behaviour programmes are designed to help offenders see that there are
always positive choices open to them that do not involve crime. (Home Office 2000, 7)

Kendall (2002) notes the way in which this policy document claims that the options of
women are not actually limited by social inequalities, they just ‘believe’ them to be so.
Thus, she argues that poverty, drug abuse, and experiences of victimisation by men are
repositioned as the result of women’s own deficit thinking, and the ostensibly positive
and rehabilitative technique of cognitive–behaviouralism is mobilised in order to
ignore the social and systemic failings that contribute to crime. Kendall (2002) also
asserts that cognitive–behaviourism is only interested in providing practical solutions
to remedy an individual’s faulty thinking, and therefore many discussions relating to
women’s experiences of victimisation and oppression are foreclosed and seen as unim-
portant. Similarly, Carlen (2003, 2008), who has written extensively in the area of
women and imprisonment, has also contested the notion that women’s criminal behav-
iour is the consequence of ‘cognitive deficits’. For her, adequate housing, employment,
and secure personal relationships are far more likely to lead women to desist from crime
than any ‘brainwashing attempts’ (2003, 34) made in the programmes. Consequently,
considerations of the wider social inequalities that lead to women’s criminal behaviour
are overlooked and ignored by policy-makers.
Shaw and Hannah-Moffat (2004) have criticised the monolithic nature of offender
rehabilitation, claiming that the programmes ‘decontextualise, individualise and patho-
logise offending in accordance with gendered and racialised norms’ (p. 91). They claim
risk assessments, which are used to decide whether a probationer is eligible to attend a
particular programme, conform to white middle-class moral and social standards, par-
ticularly with regard to questions about lifestyle and relationships. They also express
concern that the programmes themselves were originally designed for white men and
as such are far from ‘universal’ in their appeal. Although architects of the programmes
have responded to charges that the programmes ignore women, in practice this has led
to treating women in the programmes in essentialised and stereotypical ways. For
instance, case studies were changed so that their examples featured secretaries rather
than builders (Kendall 2002). These rather tokenistic efforts merely served to
 Gender and Education 401

endorse stereotypical gender norms. Moreover, Kendall (2002) has pointed out that
‘where cognitive behavioural programmes recognise women’s differences they do so
by drawing on traditional notions of women’s madness. That is, females are regarded
as inherently more prone to mental illnesses than males and this assumption is
embedded into the programmes’ (p. 196). Thus, for Kendall (2002) and more recently
Hannah-Moffat (2008), it is not enough to ‘insert’ women into the programmes, as this
continues to ignore the pathologising theoretical framework within which the pro-
grammes are delivered.
Although these researchers have made extremely significant contributions in this
area, there is still a need for further work to be carried out from a feminist post-struc-
turalist perspective, which provides: a critique of the programmes in a non-custodial
context; empirical data which includes the experiences and responses of probationers;
and an analysis of the way in which the gendered identities of group members are con-
structed in this context. As such, this article aims to contribute to the work of feminist
researchers such as Kendall (2002), Carlen (2008), and Hannah-Moffat (2008) through
an analysis of the way in which gendered subjectivities are constructed within this ped-
agogic space.

Gender ‘monoglossia’ and ‘heteroglossia’

In order to analyse the way in which gendered subjectivities are constructed within a
probation learning environment, I have drawn on Butler’s (1990) assertion that both
sex and gender are discursively produced. Butler’s radical deconstruction of both sex
and gender has challenged the assumption that gender flows unproblematically from
a naturally sexed body, enabling the word ‘masculine’ to signify a female body and
‘feminine’ to signify a male one. Halberstam’s (1998) concept of ‘female masculinity’
has also been useful with regard to the development of this analysis. Halberstam (1998)
draws on Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’ in order to separate the concept of ‘mas-
culinity’ from the sexed male body and ‘femininity’ from the sexed female body. This
has enabled her to explore the ‘alternative masculinities’ of women, with a particular
focus on the ‘female masculinity’ of Drag Kings (Halberstam 1998). However, Paech-
ter (2006) has criticised Halberstam (1998) for treating masculinity as a fixed concept
and associating particular ‘traits’ of masculinity with those usually attributed to ‘domi-
nant males’ (p. 260). Paechter (2006) also claims that Halberstam’s work unduly
focuses on bodily appearance and that it mistakenly focuses on the spectator’s power
to inscribe gender on an individual’s body. Consequently, she argues that gender is
‘centrally concerned with who one considers oneself to be, not how one appears to
others’ (p. 259). However, Kessler and McKenna’s (1978) work has highlighted the
significance of other people in the process of gender attribution, and Halberstam
(1998) herself has described her frequent experiences of being mistaken for a man
when she entered a female bathroom because of how people ‘read’ her body. She indi-
cates that this continual mis-identification of her female body as male has inevitably
affected the understanding of her own individual gender identity. Therefore, the inter-
play between the individual and the audience is crucial to the development of gender
identity, and the role that the body plays with regard to these developments should
not be minimised.
In spite of these criticisms, the concepts of ‘female masculinity’ and more recently
that of ‘male femininity’ have been usefully applied to empirical work, for example, in
education research (Renold 2007; Francis 2008b). However, Francis (2010) has argued
402 E. Perry

that cases of ‘female masculinity’ or ‘male femininity’ can only really be usefully
applied to a very small number of cases in empirical work, as the majority of people
tend not to perform masculinity or femininity in such obvious or clear-cut ways. In
order to move towards a more nuanced account of gender, Francis (2008a) has
drawn on Bahktin’s (1981) insights into language and applied it to the theorisation
of gender. Using Bakhtin’s terms ‘monoglossia’ (which refers to dominant forms of
language that take the appearance of being natural, fixed, stable, and unifying) and
‘heteroglossia’ (language which operates at a more individualised ‘micro’ level and
is fluid, shifting, and dynamic), Francis (2008a, 2010) argues that binary formations
of gender are ‘monoglossic’ constructions, which masquerade as natural, stable, and
unitary. However, at the ‘heteroglossic’ level of individual subjectivity, dominant pro-
ductions of gender can be subverted and resisted. She also suggests that this linguistic
heteroglossia characterises all performances of gender to a degree and that, as such, this
model can enable a more subtle and nuanced account of gender than the concepts of
‘female masculinity’ or ‘male femininity’. The following data focus on ‘Michelle’,
the only woman in the study who had been sentenced to attend the ART programme.
Although Michelle could easily be analysed in terms of Halberstam’s (1998) concept of
‘female masculinity’, I have drawn on Francis’ (2008a) notion of gender ‘monoglossia’
and ‘heteroglossia’ in order to capture the dominant ‘monoglossic’ constructions relat-
ing to essentialist discourses mobilised by facilitators and male group members, and
Michelle’s subtle ‘heteroglossic’ performances of gender, despite initial appearances
to the contrary.

Methods
The qualitative data presented in this article formed part of a wider study that aimed to
provide a feminist post-structuralist critique of the cognitive–behavioural programmes
run by the probation service. The fieldwork for the research was carried out with one
probation area in the south of England, across four centres in the county, between
May and November 2008. Three groups were observed: two Enhanced Thinking
Skills programmes and one ART programme. Semi-structured interviews were
carried out with 11 Programme Facilitators (3 men, 8 women, and 11 white) and 17
group members (15 men, 2 women, 1 Asian, and 16 white) at the end of the
programmes.
Researchers have noted that gaining access to criminal justice settings can be com-
plicated and time-consuming (Davies 2000; Smith and Wincup 2000). The process of
gaining access for this piece of research took a year from initially requesting access to
commencing the fieldwork. The majority of negotiations focused on informed consent.
Some members of probation management did not think that it would be necessary to ask
the group members for their consent to the project. Prior to commencing a programme,
all probationers had to sign an institutional contract agreeing to observation and
research for monitoring and evaluation purposes. However, refusing to sign this insti-
tutional contract would entail a return to court and possibly a prison sentence. Thus,
there was an evident need to gain separate and independent informed consent from pro-
bationers for this piece of research in order to prevent recruitment by coercive means.
Following negotiation a compromise was reached whereby separate informed consent
forms were allowed for participation in an interview, but that consent with regard to
observations would be provided on behalf of group members by the probation
service. Although this is a limitation of the study, issues of restricted access and
 Gender and Education 403

informed consent are common for researchers conducting research in criminal justice
settings, and a pragmatic approach is required in order to negotiate access whilst still
maintaining ethical integrity (Smith and Wincup 2000).
Access to the setting was also restricted; so sessions were observed on a monitor
outside the room. However, I was able to spend time with group members before the
session and during breaks; so they became familiar with my presence and the
purpose of my observations. The observation itself consisted of viewing five 2-h
sessions of each group at different stages during the programme. Fieldnotes were
made during the sessions and were divided into categories with an emphasis on the
study aims. Interviews were recorded and following the transcription of interviews,
the data were analysed using discourse analytic techniques (Burman and Parker
1993). It was not possible for interviewees to be involved in respondent validation
of transcripts due to restricted access. However, care was taken to analyse data with
sensitivity and a broad awareness of the whole interview, in order to avoid quoting par-
ticipants out of context. Pseudonyms have also been adopted throughout in order to
protect the anonymity of the participants involved.

Constructing the female ‘offender’

Policy documents and programme literature have tended to position female offenders in
stereotypical and essentialist ways (Kendall 2002; Hannah-Moffat 2008). Therefore, it
is not surprising that similar constructions were apparent in the comments of the facil-
itators. Female group members were often seen as being a ‘good influence’ on the male
group members, either due to their ‘natural’ ability to bring calm to situations or by
encouraging the men to get in touch with their emotions:

I think that a lot of the men struggle when we look at emotions and those sides of things. I
have covered on a group with a female on, and that was useful actually. She did speak a lot
about emotions and that led to the men opening up a bit more. (Lucy, white, 20s, ETS
facilitator)

When we’re asking offenders to get in touch with their emotions, working with an all male
group can be difficult, because some people won’t admit to having these emotions [. . .]
but if you’ve got a woman in there, it sometimes changes the dynamics, so they are
able to admit that, yeah, they do feel like this. (Paula, white, 50s, ETS facilitator)

More specifically, facilitators often positioned older female group members as ‘mother
figures’ for the young men:

There’s a perfect example in an ETS that I’ve just done. Kirsty her name was. And she
was in her. . . 40s? Really strong, strong, female character. And she was a mum to
them. It was a very, very young group. 18. 25. They were very, very young. And
Kirsty had more control of that group than we did as facilitators. And she left after
about Session 8 or 9, and that group just went down hill. You took her out and there
were just, riots in the group, ‘cos she wasn’t there. (Helen, white, 30s, ART facilitator)

I’ve also had some older females on OSAP [Offender Substance Abuse Programme] who
have a motherly influence and are quite respected almost in that way it appears. (Nikki,
white, 20s, ETS facilitator)

Thus, female group members, especially older female group members, were often posi-
tioned as being mature, capable, in touch with their emotions, and able to actively
404 E. Perry

support facilitators’ work with the more needy, aggressive, immature, and cognitively
deficient male group members. However, younger women were often positioned as
more problematic, and were frequently constructed in sexualised ways:

. . . she was a beautiful young woman. One of her ambitions was to be a glamour model. It
was a very hot summer, and she didn’t wear many clothes at all. And it was actually very
difficult for the tutors to get the attention of the young men in the group, you know?
(Cathy, white, 50s, Treatment Manager)

One of the most difficult women I’ve had to work with. Young girl, and she was a pole
dancer. [. . .] extremely attractive, on a dominantly male group, and she had no qualms
about what her job was and she would discuss it. And in the first session she came in
and we had to say, ‘you’re going to have to keep your coat on’. Because she was
wearing very little underneath. (Helen, white, 30s, ART facilitator)

Facilitators constructed the ‘ideal’ female probationer as mature, caring, calming, and
able to encourage group members to discuss emotional issues. By contrast, young
female probationers were more likely to be constructed as overtly sexual, provoca-
tively clothed, and distracting for the young, male group members. Despite these con-
structions, which appeared to prioritise the ‘needs’ of male group members at the
expense of the females in the group, Treatment Managers and facilitators were also
keen to stress that they were ‘responsive’ to ‘lone females’, emphasising that they
tried to place them on groups with other women wherever possible. Although this
‘responsivity’ was underpinned by an ethic of ‘care’, and may well have been
desired by some female probationers, it also rested on a construction of the female
probationer as vulnerable, timid, and unable to cope in a programme without the
support of another woman. Thus, facilitators tended to draw on gender essentialist,
binary constructions when discussing female offenders. These findings support Far-
rant’s (2006) assertion that gender fails to be sufficiently problematised by staff
members within criminal justice organisations. Having briefly analysed some of the
facilitators’ binarised and monoglossic constructions of female probationers, I will
now turn to explore some of the ways in which Michelle challenged some of these
dominant discourses.

Michelle’s transgressive performances of gender

Of the two women who took part in the study, I have chosen to focus on Michelle
(white, 40s, ART group), due to her striking and subversive performances of gender
in this environment. ART groups in this probation area were, according to staff
members, almost always made up of men; so it was unusual for a woman to be
present in the group. As a woman who had committed a violent offence, Michelle
had already transgressed the traditional boundaries of ‘feminine’ behaviour (Miller
2002) and as the rare female in an ART group she had already been marked out as
‘different’ and in need of special treatment by probation staff before she had even
begun to attend the programme.
Apart from her shoulder-length hair, Michelle’s appearance was stereotypically
‘unfeminine’. She tended to wear tracksuits and trainers, and no make up or jewellery
(in contrast to the young female probationers described by Helen and Cathy), and had a
deep, husky ‘smoker’s voice’. With regard to her behaviour in the group, Michelle was
consistently the most vocal and dominant person in the room. She was frequently the
first person to participate in discussions and was always keen to share her views on a
 Gender and Education 405

subject. However, this did not mean that her responses to the facilitators’ questions
were particularly ‘compliant’ or ‘pro-social’. Indeed, her attitude towards violence
often appeared to be ‘matter of fact’:

Ian asks why it’s important to be able to express yourself. Silence. At this point Michelle
takes out a tissue, spits on it and starts to rub her trainer. ‘Do any of you find it hard to
express your feelings?’ asks Ian. ‘Yes’ says Michelle, still rubbing her trainer. ‘Which
bit?’ says Ian. ‘All of it’, she says. She looks up and notices Ian is watching her trainer
rubbing. ‘I was just at the station’ she says, by way of explanation ‘and I saw someone
get their face smashed in’. She laughs ‘it wasn’t me though – honestly!’ Adam laughs
with her. ‘No,’ she continues more seriously ‘he was. . . badly wounded. And I’ve just
noticed I’ve got blood on my trainers, so I’m just getting it off’. She continues with the
spit and rub process. (ART, Session 6)

Michelle subverts the positioning of female group members as more in touch with their
emotions by cursorily responding to Ian, stating that she finds emotions difficult to
express. Moreover, this discussion takes place whilst she rubs off what appears to be
blood on her trainers. Michelle seemingly takes a very casual approach to the violence,
even joking that she was not the perpetrator of the crime. Through the telling of this
story, Michelle constructs herself as the opposite of the emotional, hysterical female,
instead presenting herself to the men in the group as mentally and emotionally con-
trolled, and unaffected by the violence she has witnessed. Later in the same session,
Michelle also discussed and defended her own use of violence:

‘OK’, says Michelle, ‘I’ll give you an example. I was round my friend’s house, and my
friend’s boyfriend pushed her little girl. So I picked her up and I smacked him in the face
as hard as I could, and I pushed him down the stairs. And then, the police come round and
arrest me! But I think what I did was right, don’t you’? Michelle acts out the punching and
pushing movements and appears to be enjoying telling the story. Helen responds saying,
‘you have a strong value Michelle that children should be protected, and there’s nothing
wrong with that. But by acting like that, how does that little girl feel about you now?’ ‘Oh
she thinks I’m wonderful’ says Michelle. ‘She wants to come and live with me. Which is
good, because he’s a cunt anyway’. (ART, Session 6)

Helen, the facilitator, invokes the idea of a feminine ‘ethic of care’ (Gilligan 1982) by
suggesting that Michelle’s actions were motivated by her desire to protect the child. By
focusing on characteristics such as ‘caring’, which have traditionally been ascribed as
‘feminine’, Helen attempts to encourage Michelle to conform to a more ‘acceptable’
model of femininity. She attempts to use motivational techniques and a Socratic ques-
tion in order to hint that Michelle may have scared the child. However, Michelle com-
pletely disregards this suggestion and reasserts her belief that violence was necessary in
that situation. Michelle’s use of language is also worth noting, as she frequently used
the word ‘cunt’ during sessions; a word which Germaine Greer (BBC TV 2006)
considers to be the most offensive word in the English language. During the 1970s
and 1980s, Greer (1986) argued for a re-appropriation of the word ‘cunt’ by women
in order to make the term less offensive. However, more recently Greer has claimed
that she is ‘perversely pleased’ that the word has retained its power to shock, offend,
and ‘make strong men go pale’ (BBC TV 2006). However, in some quarters it has
been disputed that the word retains the power that Greer attributed to it several years
ago. For example, ‘liberal’ newspapers such as The Guardian use the term, albeit in
a measured way and usually as part of a direct quote (The Guardian 2012). The
word has entered popular cultural usage, which may have diminished its force.
406 E. Perry

Therefore, it cannot be assumed that Michelle’s use of the word ‘cunt’ is a monoglossic
appropriation of masculinity. Class, ‘race’, and gender relations all affect the discursive
usage of this term; so it is possible that rather than a ‘feminist’ act, Michelle has appro-
priated the word, in a similar way to how ‘nigger’ has been appropriated via rap and
hip-hop by young, black men (Nayak 2003).
Michelle also appeared to align herself more directly with the male group members
by making jokes involving sexual innuendo at the expense of the female facilitators:

Helen tells me that she was annoyed with Michelle before the start of the session. ‘I was
trying to open the door and said that it was a bit stiff’. And behind me I hear Michelle
saying to one of the others ‘I bet that’s the only stiff thing she’s touched for a while’.
(ART, Session 9)

But despite these attempts, Michelle’s ostensibly ‘masculine’ behaviour did not appear
to lead to any added credibility or popularity amongst the male group members.
Although the men laughed at many of her comments, the laughter often appeared to
be directed at her rather than at the target of her jokes. During the interview, some
of the group members also appeared to be troubled at Michelle’s use of language:

She was the one who tended to swear the most on the course. To use the c word the most
on the course. I don’t know if she was just trying to fit in with the boys the most. But she
tended to, unfortunately for her, kind of make herself look a bit foolish at times with some
of the stuff she would come out with. She wasn’t a normal female. [. . .] She was an inter-
esting character to have on the group as we were all waiting for what’s the next thing to
come out of her mouth. The fact that she was female had little to do with it as she was such
a tomboy. (Adam, white, 30s, ART Group)

Some of the things she came out with was quite sort of like, ‘woo’! You wouldn’t think
that would come out of a girl’s mouth. [. . .] Girls don’t. . . I mean, I don’t think. . . most
girls don’t like swearing. Proper girls. (John, white, 40s, ART Group)

So for John and Adam, Michelle was not a ‘normal’ or ‘proper’ female because of the
language she used. Adam also positions her as ‘foolish’ for attempting to behave in a
stereotypically ‘masculine’ way and trying too hard to ‘fit in’ with the men. Whereas
John and Adam positioned Michelle as a ‘tomboy’, some of the facilitators actively
sought to find the ‘feminine’ aspects of Michelle:

When we’ve done one-to-ones, you really just see this maternal, gentle, sensitive, caring
person, that doesn’t want to offend any more, that doesn’t think it’s big or clever to go out
and start fights with people. . . and I don’t think she’s giving us lip service. I think the lip
service is to the boys in the group. Because in front of the group she is more macho than
any of them. . . She’s alpha male in the group. (Helen, white, 30s, ART facilitator)

Helen positions Michelle as someone who actively performs hyper-masculinity for the
men in the group as a defense mechanism, but who stops performing when interviewed
on her own. Helen indicates that when Michelle is separated from the men, her ‘real’
characteristics are revealed. Significantly, these ‘real’ characteristics are traditionally
feminine: maternal, gentle, sensitive, and caring. These characteristics are also associ-
ated with positive, ‘pro-social’, non-criminal behaviour. Similarly, Jacqui states:

I found it very interesting the way she became more feminised as the programme pro-
gressed, with the make up, the hair, the clothes. Everything was. . . week by week. Prettier
 Gender and Education 407

and prettier, if you want to use that sort of . . . that pretty look [. . .] I think what I mostly
saw in Michelle was a complete shift towards a more pro-social way of being. Was that
gender related? I don’t know, but her self-esteem seemed to rise so much. And she didn’t
seem to be then subject to the restrictions that perhaps her gender did present initially. As
the confidence was there just to be Michelle, rather than the female stereotype. It seemed
to free her up in a way. (Jacqui, white, 50s, Treatment Manager)

Jacqui observes the way Michelle’s appearance became more ‘feminine’ over the course
of the programme and quite explicitly equates this with ‘a more pro-social way of being’.
By conflating masculinity with criminal behaviour and femininity with ‘pro-social’
behaviour, Jacqui implicitly draws on dominant, monoglossic discourses that position
female ‘offenders’ as ‘doubly deviant’, for both breaking the law and transgressing
gender norms (Carlen 2002; Heidensohn and Gelsthorpe 2007). Thus, she appears to
suggest that the rehabilitative project for female ‘offenders’ is one of conformity to tra-
ditional ‘feminine’ gender norms as well as a desistance from crime. It is also interesting
to note that Jacqui (in a similar manner to Helen) constructs Michelle as a woman who felt
pressure to ‘perform’ masculinity and the ‘female stereotype’ of the ‘ladette’ due to her
lack of confidence, but that the ‘real’ and authentic Michelle was revealed as the pro-
gramme progressed, symbolised through the wearing of make-up, ‘pretty’ clothes, and
more explicitly ‘feminine’ behaviour. Despite Michelle’s productions of ‘hyper-mascu-
linity’, her behaviour continued to be read as a conscious performance by facilitators and
male group members. Her sexed female body continued to be the primary way in which
her actions were interpreted, leading Michelle’s ‘feminine’ behaviour to be constituted as
part of her ‘natural’ identity and her ‘masculine’ behaviour to be viewed as performance.
It was not possible to obtain data from Michelle with regard to her gendered perform-
ances within the group. As such, this analysis should be treated tentatively. However,
these findings, which focus on the discourses mobilised by facilitators, support the
work of researchers such as Kendall (2002), Shaw and Hannah-Moffat (2004) who
argue that female offenders who attend probation programmes are frequently positioned
in essentialist ways.
Another perspective can be gained through analysis of Michelle’s gendered identi-
fications during the interview, although these reflections should not be viewed as any
more authentic than her performances of gender in the group (see Butler 1990).
When speaking about her childhood Michelle positioned herself as a tomboy, stating
that she had never liked ‘frilly things’ and had ‘always had lots of blokes as friends’.
She explained that her father had been an Royal Air Force drill sergeant; so she had
been brought up ‘to stand on my own two feet’. During the course of the interview,
Michelle discussed the relationship with her father in some detail, stating:

He wanted a boy, he didn’t want me. My mum was very ill when she had me and he didn’t
want me at all. He wanted my mum to give me to my nan and granddad, his mum and dad,
to bring up. ‘Cos he didn’t want my mum. . . he didn’t feel my mum could cope with me,
medically.

However, Michelle’s attempts to be the boy her father wanted rarely led to parental
approval, as she explains in the following extract which took place at a school event
during her teens:

Michelle: This girl came over and said, ‘you’re Michelle’s dad aren’t you?’ And he went
‘yeah’, and she went ‘your Michelle’s such a good fighter’. And my dad was mortified. He
was like, ‘why couldn’t that have been my son she was talking about, and not my
408 E. Perry

daughter’. And I was like ‘oh good!’ Pleased! . . . Never mind.

Interviewer: So he wasn’t too impressed then?
Michelle: No, he wasn’t impressed.
Interviewer: If you were a boy, he’d have been like, ‘well done’.
Michelle: Yeah. [. . .] But that’s the way it was. I mean to be honest, I’m more of a man
than my brother ever has been.

These data appear to indicate that to some extent Michelle did actively identify as mas-
culine. This interpretation needs to be treated with caution, as this was the only part of
Michelle’s interview that specifically addressed her gendered identity. However,
although it is possible to interpret her productions of gender within a framework of Hal-
berstam’s ‘female masculinity’ (1998), as I have argued above, this framework fails to
take into account the complex and heteroglossic nature of gender performances and
individual gender attributes (Francis 2010). Even within Michelle’s apparently straight-
forward performance of masculinity, there were many examples in the data in which
she challenged the men for making sexist or derisory comments about women:

Adam says ‘my girlfriend is always stressed and then goes quiet’. He laughs a little bit
derisively. Michelle picks up on this instantly and says defensively, ‘well maybe she
doesn’t want to upset you’. (ART, Session 3)

Moreover, Michelle’s accusations of sexism led some of the male group members to
appropriate discourses relating to the ‘new man’ who actively participated in household
tasks:

Eddie discusses his assignment, describing an incident when he became angry, saying that
he went into the kitchen and his wife turned round and said ‘get out of my way’. Michelle
interrupts at this point saying ‘was she cooking though? ‘Cos if you’re standing there with
pans. . . then you’re going to say “get out the way”, aren’t you?!’ Eddie doesn’t look too
pleased about being interrupted by Michelle. ‘No’, he says shortly, ‘cos I do all the
cooking anyway’. (ART, Session 9)

Michelle says ‘my mum went away the other week so my dad was on his own and when
she came back the place was a shit hole. No washing up done. Nothing’. ‘But I’m a man
and I do washing up’ says John. Michelle laughs, ‘I’m sure you do’. (ART, Session 6)

Although Michelle does not actively perform ‘femininity’ in these examples, she does
appear to actively identify with women rather than attempting to be ‘one of the lads’,
and defends Adam’s girlfriend, Eddie’s wife, and her own mother from what she per-
ceives to be the sexism of men. Therefore, Michelle’s performances of masculinity con-
tained many tensions and contradictions. At an institutional level, dominant discourses
surrounding gender were binarised and essentialist. However, gender is constructed
‘through power relations and through struggle across different sites in space and
time’ (Skeggs 1997, 27). Individual performances of gender are never clear-cut, and
there is evidence to suggest that Michelle was producing and negotiating her gendered
identity in a number of different ways that were related to the contexts of her
interactions.

Conclusion
Cognitive–behavioural programmes in criminal justice settings construct ‘offenders’
within a rigid framework of ‘cognitive deficits’, which focus on what probationers
 Gender and Education 409

lack, rather than on the skills they have. Although policy-makers have developed
specific strategies and programmes for ‘female offenders’ (Home Office 2000), these
policies have been based on essentialist conceptualisations of gender and have
treated women in stereotypical ways (Kendall 2002; Hannah-Moffat 2008). By initially
focusing on institutional discourses at a practitioner level, this article has discussed the
way in which facilitators tended to construct the ‘ideal’ female probationer as mature,
calm, sensitive, and a ‘good influence’ on the more rowdy and immature male group
members. However, young female probationers were positioned as potentially more
problematic due to their perceived propensity to dress in a sexually provocative
manner, which was seen to be distracting to the male group members. Bearing in
mind the policy framework, it is not surprising that such constructions were reflected
in the comments of facilitators and tended to draw on gender essentialist, binary con-
structions when discussing female offenders. These findings support Farrant’s (2006)
assertion that gender fails to be sufficiently problematised within studies of criminal
justice organisations and that further work of a feminist post-structuralist nature
needs to take place in this area.
Through an analysis of the gender-transgressive performances of Michelle, I have
suggested that her aesthetic appearance, confidence, aggression, physicality, and use
of language initially indicated a seemingly straightforward performance of ‘masculi-
nity’. However, her female sexed body meant that facilitators and other male group
members continually interpreted her actions within this over-riding biological frame-
work. Staff members positioned her as a woman who was consciously performing mas-
culinity, but that beneath these performances the ‘real woman’ was waiting to be
discovered. Within this discursive environment, the rehabilitation of female ‘offenders’
appeared to be one of conformity to traditional ‘feminine’ gender norms as well as a
desistance from crime. Thus, part of the project of rehabilitating Michelle was, to an
extent, also about rediscovering her ‘femininity’. But by drawing on Francis’
(2008a) notion of gender ‘monoglossia’ and ‘heteroglossia’, I have aimed to show
that although dominant institutional discourses were binarised and monoglossic in
their nature, Michelle’s apparently straightforward performances of ‘female masculi-
nity’ contained many tensions and contradictions that were produced and negotiated
through the contexts of her interactions.
The evidence presented in this article would indicate that policy-makers need to
take a more radical, anti-essentialist approach to issues of gender, and develop practical
strategies which simultaneously recognise structural inequality and oppression, but also
individual inconsistency with regard to the production of gendered subjectivities
(Francis 2010). Similarly, probation managers and facilitators would benefit from
anti-essentialist gender awareness training that dispels stereotypical notions of
gender roles and takes into account the plethora of ways that gender, social class,
and ethnicity intersect to constantly (re)produce identities in different environments.
Further research also needs to be conducted that develops some of the findings of
this article, particularly with regard to the stereotyping and marginalisation of female
probationers in cognitive–behavioural learning environments.

Note
1. It has been widely noted by researchers that gender should not be treated in isolation as
though it were a distinct and autonomous ‘variable’ (Chesney-Lind 2006; Hudson 2007).
For example, Skeggs (1997) has stated that the category ‘woman’ is classed, racialised,
410 E. Perry

and ‘produced through power relations and through struggle across different sites in space
and time’ (p. 27). For the purposes of this article I have decided to foreground issues of
gender, but further research needs to be conducted that focuses on the intersections
between ethnicity, social class, and gender in a probation context.

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