Source: Don Kurtz, 785-532-7176, dlk3535@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, 785-532-6415, ebarcomb@k-state.edu

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009

K-STATE SOCIAL WORK PROFESSOR FINDS THAT THE DIFFERENCES IN HOW MALE AND FEMALE 1xbet online games login OFFICERS MANAGE STRESS MAY ACTUALLY ACCENTUATE THEIR STRESS ON THE JOB

MANHATTAN -- When male 1xbet online games login officers need to de-stress, they might trade war stories -- but likely not with their female colleagues.

But the guys don't necessarily have it easy. They are often discouraged from showing emotion when dealing with stress and are expected to uphold the overtly masculine idea of what it means to be a 1xbet online games login officer.

Research by a Kansas State University professor has found that the different ways in which men and women in the 1xbet online games login force deal with stress may actually cause them more stress. Don Kurtz, an assistant professor of social work at K-State, studied the gender differences in stress and burnout among 1xbet online games login officers. The work was published in the journal Feminist Criminology in 2008, http://tinyurl.com/c2p2et

He said it is the first of his research that has examined gender. While completing his doctorate at K-State, Kurtz said he was taking classes on gender and society and was researching 1xbet online games login stress. He noticed that there was no research studying the intersection of these two areas.

&1xbet online games login ;I had come from working in social work, where they were very accepting of men in the women-dominated field,&1xbet online games login ; Kurtz said. &1xbet online games login ;In policing, they tend to be suspicious of the abilities of women in the field.&1xbet online games login ;

For the research published in Feminist Criminology, Kurtz looked at data from a survey of officers in the Baltimore 1xbet online games login Department. As a follow up to this part of the research, Kurtz also interviewed officers from three 1xbet online games login departments. He found that male and female 1xbet online games login officers have different sources of stress and different ways of dealing with it.

&1xbet online games login ;Telling war stories is almost exclusively a male endeavor,&1xbet online games login ; Kurtz said. &1xbet online games login ;It's quite often in a group social setting, and officers talk about stressful events that happened. What's interesting is that they remove the fear and emotion that go along with it and replace it with these superhuman qualities.&1xbet online games login ;

&1xbet online games login ;I found that women felt excluded from war stories. If they started exaggerating the stories in the way that men did, they could be questioned. So it becomes a male-only way of managing stress.&1xbet online games login ;

In the journal article, Kurtz suggests that in some ways women have a better chance to deal with violent cases because it's more acceptable for women to be upset or vulnerable.

&1xbet online games login ;For male officers to show emotion, it was career suicide,&1xbet online games login ; he said.

Some of the cases that men find the most stressful, Kurtz said, were likely to be given to women.

&1xbet online games login ;One thing I found interesting was that when officers discuss the most stressful things, it's usually death of a child or the physical or sexual abuse of a child,&1xbet online games login ; he said. &1xbet online games login ;Women are more likely to handle these jobs because large police departments often assign women to these investigative units. However, it's often seen as lower police work. In large departments where there area lot of juvenile delinquents and child abuse cases, there's an idea that women are better at managing kids.&1xbet online games login ;

One of the biggest differences Kurtz found was the role that family played in 1xbet online games login officers' stress. Whereas a family life can help male officers deal better with stress from the job, women may not have the same support in their own families.

&1xbet online games login ;Women settle into the role of caretaker and come home to a second shift,&1xbet online games login ; Kurtz said.

The strange hours of 1xbet online games login work can be seen as more acceptable for men than women, he said.

&1xbet online games login ;Although family conflicts can be distressful for men, the fact that a male officer is seen as the breadwinner makes it more OK for him to miss a birthday party, for example, so he can go to work.&1xbet online games login ;

Kurtz also looked at how race changes the stress differences between men and women.

&1xbet online games login ;We should expect a difference,&1xbet online games login ; he said. &1xbet online games login ;In American society, race complicates everything.&1xbet online games login ;

For instance, white female officers are more likely to be sexualized, whereas black female officers are often seen as laborers. And, while black male officers report lower levels of stress than white men, they also report a higher rate of burnout.

Kurtz said he hopes his research will help 1xbet online games login departments better understand how gender affects stress and that it will spur further academic study in this area.