ABSTRACT
Men’s prisons can be particularly challenging workplaces for women, who often experience barriers to belonging. While uniforms are recognised as important for professional identity in military and policing contexts, how they shape women’s identity practices in prison work has not been widely examined. To address this gap, we completed a reflexive thematic analysis of data produced through a cooperative inquiry project with 16 women working in Australian men’s prisons. We draw on feminist scholarship that understands dress as an embodied, routine practice; and the body as continually becoming through its material relations. From this perspective, we examine how the materiality of uniformed appearance shaped embodied professional identity for these women prison workers. Our analysis produced three themes: the uniform as a marker of identity and belonging; that gendered barriers to belonging are manifested through the uniformed body; and that dress was integral in the process of ‘becoming’ women prison workers. Overall, the uniformed appearance both constrained and supported women’s sense of belonging and professional identity, producing tensions but also strength and agency. We argue that examining embodied professional identity through everyday dressing practices offers critical insight into how gender is lived and negotiated within uniformed, traditionally masculine, male-dominated professions.