This paper portrays the voices and views of female police officers who work full-time and try to combine this with their domestic caring responsibilities. There is a focus on their perceptions of work, their domestic caring responsibilities and their aspirations for career advancement. The paper culminated from ten semi-structured interviews, conducted with female officers working in urban and rural police stations based in and around a large town in the North West of Ireland. By exploring female officers’ common perceptions of combining work with domestic caring responsibilities, it was the researcher’s intention to create a better understanding of life as a female officer in a mostly male environment such as the Garda Síochána. Results established that there was inequality in the top echelons of the Garda Síochána; through self-exclusion, officers experienced promotional disadvantage as well as disadvantage with regard to how domestic caring responsibilities were managed.