![]() In this paper we draw on interview data and our findings show that the range of women employed in door security is more diverse than has been suggested by research on male bouncers, but that for a significant group of the sample that we have called ‘The Connected’, cultural capital is just as important as it is for their male colleagues. ![]() In doing so, we are contributing another layer to understandings of women's relationship with violence, which to date have tended to hinge on the violence power nexus in their presentation of women as ‘victims’, ‘survivors’ and ‘peacekeepers’, and so scripting femininity in terms vulnerability, non-assertiveness and pacification (see Walklate 2004). ![]() Here we focus in particular on the ways in which women deal with aggression, and whilst recognizing that night-time security work can often be mundane and non-eventful ( Monaghan 2002b), an analysis of ‘violence work’ provides a conceptual framework from which to explore the linkages between femininity and violence. As a consequence the female bouncer presents us with an apparently anomalous manifestation of contemporaneous social control that would appear to contradict normative gender codes and behavioural rules ( Miller 1998). However, this paper explores women's increasing formal role in the night-time economy, a role that has traditionally been typified by toughness, power, control and violent potential, all qualities intrinsic to the bouncer's craft ( Hobbs et al. Our attention focuses on this group of women, who we refer to as ‘The Connected’, and examine how they are ‘doing gender’ when they negotiate violence ‘on the door’Īlthough nocturnal public space, and night-time drinking venues specifically, have traditionally been viewed as heterosexual male preserves governed by the rules of patriarchal cultures ( Hey 1986), working-class women have established their own cultures in pubs ( Hunt and Saterlee 1987), and the performance of control roles by women within licensed premises is not an entirely recent development ( Kirkby 1997). In this paper, we draw on interview data with one particular category of female door staff women who share similar histories of exposure to violence and violent cultures, and we examine how their experiential knowledge of violence equips them with the resources to ‘work the doors’. It is drawn from a study that combined ethnographic observations and interviews in five major UK cities which explored a diverse range of issues such as gendered bodies, femininities and violence the changing needs of the night-time economy in the UK and the experiences of women engaged in ‘non-traditional’ occupations. This paper explores the emerging role of women who work as ‘bouncers’, or doorstaff, in the night-time economy and examines how the cultural capital of the female bouncer is connected to the methods utilized to control licensed premises.
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