Women in Charge

by Silvestri; Marisa

• ISBN13: 9781843920465
• ISBN10: 1843920468
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Willan

Summary

The number of women police in England and Wales continues to increase, and whilst under represented at senior rank level the arrival of women at Chief Constable level has raised the profile of their role.This is the first book to provide a detailed study of senior women police officers, and is based on extensive research which includes a wide range of in-depth interviews. Its main aims are as follows:to trace women's progression into police leadershipto develop an understanding of the way women leaders can bring about change through developing new styles and conceptualisations of leadershipassesses the extent to which senior policewomen are working to make gender and equality issues visible and central to organisational agendato situate the issue of women's leadership in the police in the broader context of debates around police diversity, changes in policing tasks, and issues of corruption, community and race relations and crime and clear-up rates.

Author Biography

Marisa Silvestri is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at London South Bank University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(20)
A methodological note	9	(5)
Scope of the book	14	(7)
The police organisation: a gendered site	21	(23)
A gendered reading of organisations	23	(3)
The construction of police work as `manly'	26	(5)
Gendered images -- gendered meanings	31	(8)
A multiplicity of police cultures and identities	39	(5)
Rethinking organisational change	44	(24)
Change through equality	45	(13)
Change though quality	58	(3)
Changing identities	61	(7)
The making of police leaders	68	(34)
There's only one way up -- from the bottom and within	69	(5)
Doing and managing `time'	74	(17)
Doing and managing `place'	91	(11)
Doing leadership	102	(35)
Women in leadership	102	(6)
A feminist vision	108	(2)
(Re)constructing policing through a balance of gender	110	(4)
`Joining the club': adapting to police leadership	114	(7)
`Just the right amount of lippy': managing body image	121	(3)
Doing it differently: `the organisational cuddle'	124	(4)
A bit too soft	128	(4)
Being heard: achieving authority and obedience	132	(5)
Being in the sisterhood (with no sisters)	137	(34)
Searching for sisterhood	138	(1)
Doing consciousness and activism in policing	139	(3)
`Sisters' in a past life	142	(5)
Gender consciousness in contemporary policing	147	(10)
Rank gets in the way	157	(7)
Doing activism on a state level	164	(7)
Conclusion	171	(15)
References and further reading	186	(22)
Index	208