POLICEwomen or PoliceWOMEN?

This work originates from a set of accounts given by female police officers to determine how they construct their identity and their image of themselves in relation to their gender, as they talk about their roles as police, and the broader roles of men and women in society. Despite policewomen's fight for equality in policing, women not only differentiated themselves from their male counterparts, but also described “doing gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987) and “doing police work” collaboratively. Women actively resisted and adopted stereotypical norms of femininity and policing, broadening their opportunities for work in the male dominated occupation while reinforcing their traditional conception of gender difference.