Gender and Development: Voices of Female Police Officers in Ireland on Work Challenges and Commitments, Domestic Care Responsibilities, and Implications for Career Advancement
Abstract
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.
Citation
O’Hara, Maureen. “Gender and Development: Voices of Female Police Officers in Ireland on Work Challenges and Commitments, Domestic Care Responsibilities, and Implications for Career Advancement.” Journal of Research in Peace, Gender and Development 1, no. 5 (2011): 173-180.
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