Women Police in the City of Delhi: Gender Hierarchies, 'Transgression',and 'Pariah Femininities'

Santana Khanikar and Debajit Jha ()
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Debajit Jha: Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

No 347, IEG Working Papers from Institute of Economic Growth

Abstract: When women personnel are incorporated in the profession of policing, there is a general assumption behind it that the presence of women makes the force sensitive to gender-crimes, and thus more efficient in preventing and handling those. Examining such a general trend and assumption, in this paper, I attempt to see what kind of impacts such inclusion of women into the force has on the structure of gendered hierarchy and patriarchal social norms. Given the fact that policing has traditionally been seen as a 'man's job', how do the women personnel balance between being a police personnel and a woman at the same time? While examining the everyday strategies to manage a balancing act thus needed, I observe that the individual woman personnel has to continuously oscillate between two contrary enactments of what Susan E Martin (1980) calls a policewoman and a policewoman. Here, drawing on ethnographic research, I attempt to comprehend the processes of formation of a complex selfimage by women personnel in the force. Due to such identity formations, I argue, the inclusion of more women into the force, despite changing the scenario in terms of numbers, has not really led to a change in the ideas of patriarchy and ideal role types for women. While representation is a crucial factor which may lead to long run gains, in the short run, such inclusion of women in the force, does not necessarily make it more effective in terms of gender sensitivity

Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2015
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Published as Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, 2015, pages 1-21

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