Gender, accounts, and rape processing work

Guided by gendered organization theory and organizational frame analysis, this study explores officials' accounts of gender and rape processing work. The data are from qualitative interviews with 47 Florida officials who process rape victims in law enforcement, hospital emergency room, prosecution, and rape crisis contexts. Results indicate that gender "at the level of the group" is a fluid cultural resource that officials use in contradictory ways (Thorne 1993). Five Bender frame's account for why women, men or neither are superior in processing work. Overall, results support gendered organization theory, showing that (a) gender and work an fused in ways that mutually reproduce each other, lb) gender is part of official policy and practice in some organizations, (c) most processing work is performed within a gendered division of labor, and (d) processors mobilize gender informally am when policy or protocol say it is irrelevant. The results challenge cultural beliefs that women are better than men at work with rape victims. Comparative research is needed to document the prevalence of gender accounts, arrangements, and policies across organizations, jobs, and genders, and to assess them relative to victim and organizational outcomes.