Women Police in India: Job Challenges and Coping Strategies

On the whole, the book draws extensively on our Sociological preoccupation on their gender ghettoization and gendered job challenges experienced by women police, coping strategies adopted by them and that needs to be facilitated, theoretical issues and Sociological intellection of all these. This book necessarily strongly reflects the developments achieved in women policing and that needs to be achieved in the coming days. To keep the work within manageable limits, the exclusive attentions to independent challenges experienced by them could not be paid and thus ways have been paved for the future researchers for the proliferation of the issues captured in this volume. We have sought to quote supplementary landmark studies conducted across the world for re-enquiry. The book is drafted, based our exploratory-cum-descriptive doctoral study, categorically on the perceptions about the job hazards that female police officers experience and the coping mechanisms, they adopt to sustain in a dilemmatic masculine professional domain. 

The book unfurls a contrast i.e. the state is essentializing extensive visibility of women in policing to empower women, inaugurate community policing and guaranteeing justice to women and children. Conversely, women perceive the profession as inhospitable due to deprecating societal attitude towards them, typically masculine police culture, atypical gender discrimination and the state’s failure to provide them women friendly work environment, amenities and progression opportunities. Nonetheless, the contrast is shrinking gradually owing to women’s need to attend secured economic independence. As they see the job as a chance not choice, the state somewhat fails to extract the anticipated professional contribution from them. We realized the overestimation of the essence of research scholarship in women policing for gender polishing of police administration and extricating them from job hazards.

Thus the primary purpose of the book is to propose a roadmap to the government and police administrators to work pragmatically for a transformative re-conceptualization of policing, embedded in the norms of proactivism, equality, inclusion and diversity through women supportive policy framework and gender sensitive work culture. Secondly, the book would work wonders to reduce the derogatory public attitude towards women police which can furthermore galvanize women’s interest in policing, finally adding energy to the states’ striving for empowering women and doing gender justice.  Thirdly, based on the substantive groundwork and methodological innovations engaged in this study, the future researchers might undertake action and basic researches on their job-family role conflict, gender discrimination, job stress and derogatory societal attitude towards them, accommodating them in experimental group and policemen, police administrators and policy framers in the control group.