Violent and unwilling bodies: Bouncers, searching and touch.

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Violent and unwilling bodies Bouncers,
searching and touch.

• Louise Westmarland
• The Open University

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Women on the Door Female Bouncers in the
Night-time Economy

• Dick Hobbs, Louise Westmarland and Kate OBrien
• ESRC funded RES-000-23-0384
• www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk

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Publications

• Connecting the Gendered Door Women, Violence
  and Doorwork, British Journal of Sociology,
• Vol 58 (1), (2007), pp 21-38
• Negotiating Violence and Gender Security and
  the Night Time Economy in the UK, in
  Body-Gendrot, S and Spierenburg, P., (eds )
  (2007) Cultures of Violence in Europe Historical
  and Contemporary Perspectives. Springer
  Publishing

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Previous research

• Hobbs, D, Hadfield, P, Lister, S and Winlow, S.
  (2003) Bouncers. Violence and Governance in the
  Night-time Economy.
• Westmarland, L (2001) Gender and Policing. Sex,
  Power and Police Culture.

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Previous research (2)

• Hobbs et al
• Cities may have 100,000 people to control on
  Friday and Saturday nights.
• 30- 40 police
• 1,000 bouncers

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Previous research (3)

• Westmarland (2001)
• Women police judged by their (presumed) bodily
  abilities
• Not thought to be suitable for some posts
  (cars, guns and horses)
• The body viewed as an important instrument of
  force and coercion in policing

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• a huge variety of venues and stuff from your
  softest gay door to the roughest R and B doors.
  (Woman bouncer C12)

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• Most places now have to have women working in
  security, (at) night clubs in the town, you have
  to have one per club. In my experience, if
  youve got a problem with a women, its more
  hands on, so you cant have a bloke dealing
  with that can you? (Woman bouncer C17)

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• if they need to search a lady on the front door
  and there is no female (door) supervisor there
  they will radio inside for one to do a body
  search if they need to (Woman bouncer N1).

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• a lady can put drugs in her bra, because you
  cant search bras. They put them in their socks
  and pants. (Woman bouncer S2)

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• This is probably why (security company owner)
  has employed me, he will say You search all
  womens bags, yes, because they get a bit nasty
  dont they, when men approach them (Woman
  bouncer N3)

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• Because youre not really taken seriously,
  like youre not being there for any
• useful purpose really, only to check handbags
  (Woman bouncer C12).

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• Wellwhen I was up there (another venue), it
  would be like, Right thats your job, theyre
  yours, you need to be patrolling the ladies
  toilets and sorting out the women. (Woman
  bouncer N5)

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• because they were girls they asked me to ask
  them to leave and when I went into the toilet to
  tell her to go she started getting a bit physical
  and then I had to throw her out, and then
  upstairs, there was a group of them and they all
  just started fighting me. (Woman bouncer L1)

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• one group of girls had knocked another group
  of girls and it had escalated into the toiletsSo
  I had run in and there was like four girls and
  two groups...SoI brought one girl out and then
  I went back in and they were all like going at it
  hammer and tongs and I had to get involved and
  pull them apart and out of the bar. (Woman
  bouncer C17)

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• in all these venues, you cant have men
  searching women, or dragging women out of the
  toilets with their knickers at their ankles and
  stuff like that so, its a necessity, its got to
  be done they need females in those roles to deal
  with those situations.
• Int But ten years ago, or less actually, there
  were no women working then.
• There was none whatsoever so men used to go in
  the toilet and drag women out and be able to do
  whatever they wanted to do with them. (Woman
  bouncer R1)

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• yeah, you are expected to do like the toilet
  checks and stuff like that which can be not very
  nice, some of the things you see are not nice.
  (Woman bouncer Z1)
• If one of the staff went into the womens toilet
  and suspected that a woman was taking drugs, it
  would be me that would have to go in and search
  her. (Woman bouncer P2)

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• and you see them sniffing it off, the toilet
  seats and what have you, you know. The
  sani(tary) bins and
• Int (interrupts)what, a sniff off a sani bin?
• Some people do it off the toilet floor. (Woman
  bouncer N3)

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• If theres bother with girls, hell send for
  me if he wants to. If we need to search a woman
  he will send for me. If theres arguments and he
  wants us to do something he will get us to go and
  do it, but if something is going on and I get
  there first, because I do try and get there
  first, hell let us get on with it...He treats us
  as normal but if its lasses problems in the
  toilets, if its a first aid thing, hell send
  for me. Weve had a woman go into labour in the
  toilets so I went in and I dealt with it. (Woman
  bouncer S3)

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• But I say being a doorman (sic) I've had to
  deal with people that's had too many drugs that's
  like in the toilets screaming and kicking or in
  the dance floor and they've flaked out and we've
  had to call the ambulance. (Woman bouncerY1)

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• Not just search, we had to take, we had girls
  who was taking drugs and was sitting in their own
  vomit and we had to help them pull up their
  trousers, laughs why do women drink so much?
  Because Ive seen women with head in between
  their legs, their pants down and theyre half off
  the toilet and their bums sticking out on the
  edge of the toilet, and you see shit everywhere
  and vomit everywhere and Ive seen women whos
  passed out, sitting in their own sick and smell.
  Oh, just thinking about it I can just feel sick,
  but, thats things we have to deal with. (Woman
  bouncer B 9)

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