Light, Camera, Action: Notes on the Performative Performances of the Police Woman Under the Eyes of Media

Abstract

Traditionally male, the police institution had been gradually receiving women in its professional staff. Over the last two decades, the figure of the female police officer is gaining more and more space in the media. Helping to rebuild the image of the police institution, women's entry seems to assume both discursive and aesthetic standards inside and outside the police. In order to verify how women policemen, represent themselves and are represented by the mainstream media, the present study analyzed reports from widely circulated newspapers and magazines where women police officers, especially those who held the most prestigious positions in their institutions, were the main figures. There were limits and possibilities of performative performances of police women, who were sometimes portrayed from attributes recurrently associated with the naturalization of the feminine, such as kindness, sweetness and sensitivity, sometimes portrayed as beautiful, sensual and powerful. Performing different females, sometimes subverting, sometimes reaffirming certain gender prescriptions, women police help to compose the complexity of themselves and their space of performance.