Darley, Mathilde

Bringing Virility in for Questioning? Seeking Gender at the Police Station - 2014.


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Based on an ethnographic study conducted by pair of male and female researchers in a French police station, this article sets out to question the gendered biases structuring the established norms of the policing institution, and more precisely the gender roles held by investigating officers and those summoned to them. In the context of the profession’s feminization, we examine the dynamics through which “virile masculinity” tends to perpetuate itself through the use of force in specialized squads and the interdependent relationships between the gendered dimensions of the investigatory relationship, police sociability among themselves, and interactions with the target populations.