Not ‘one of the boys’: Women researching the police

This paper is concerned with the position of women researching male dominated environments; in particular, the police. Although the ideal response to such situations is to spend time negotiating an effective role for oneself, this is not always possible. The researcher often has to work with the perceptions of her held by the researched, and it has been suggested by some that these perceptions can sometimes be used to the researcher's advantage. In my own research, I found that it was possible to make use of typical police perceptions of women. However, this also raised ethical problems, and undoubtedly influenced the data I collected.