Women Police in the City of Delhi: Gender Hierarchies, ‘Pariah Femininities’ and the Politics of Presence

Abstract

This article examines a broadly accepted assumption that presence of women personnel makes police forces more gender-just, and makes an attempt to study in the context of Delhi Police, how the inclusion of women personnel impacts gendered hierarchies and patriarchal social norms operative within the space of a thana. Drawing on ethnographic research, I argue that the day-to-day practices and relations between men and women personnel in a police station do not give out a picture of a gender-just institutional set-up. Further, I argue that abuse and humiliation of women personnel within the thana is not something totally disconnected from what the institution’s official attitude towards women is, as could be read from various public campaigns of Delhi Police that infantilize and objectify women while talking of ‘protective’ men as role models. In this context, it is argued that merely inducting women into the institution without an active feminist practice against essentialization of women would not bring emancipatory outcomes.