| This paper investigates the relationship between the gender division of labour within policing and the construction of femininity by police women in one large regional Canadian police agency, Using a range of methods, including participant observation and semi-structured field interviews , it is argued that policewomen construct their femininity using the resources available to be both effective police officers, and gender accountable, depending on the demands of the interaction. More significantly, as resources used by police women to construct their femininity change, the construction of femininity will also change . An approach examining the web of bounded knowledgeability (the structures and relationships) engaged in by individual police women provides academics an opportunity to view police women not as solely "hippolyte" or "amazon" but also as "Xena". |
Updated 05/20/2006