The Position of Policewomen: A Discourse Analytic Study

Penny Dick and Catherine Cassell

Work, Employment & Society, 2004, vol. 18, issue 1, 51-72

Abstract: This article is concerned with exploring issues surrounding the position of policewomen in UK police forces, with the aim of problematizing the notion that women are difficult to retain because they are unable to meet the demands of police work once they have children.The article examines how policing is socially constructed, and why policewomen ‘consent’ to dominant, yet potentially ‘oppressive’ constructions of police work. In the article, the research interview is seen as an interactional context that predicates ‘identity work’. Using Foucauldian principles, the article argues that the power relations operating in both the interview and the broader socio-cultural context are productive of discourses through which individuals constitute their identities. It is this constitutive act that produces women’s consent to dominant constructions of policing because at the same time, this ‘resists’ broader ideological discourses that threaten their integrity.

Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:18:y:2004:i:1:p:51-72

DOI: 10.1177/0950017004040762

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