Re-theorizing the progress of women in policing: An alternative perspective from the Global South

Abstract

Women’s entry into policing, a traditionally masculine occupation, has been theorized almost entirely through a liberal feminist theoretical lens where equality with men is the end target. From this theoretical viewpoint, women’s police stations in the Global South established specifically to respond to gender violence have been conceptualized as relics from the past. We argue that this approach is based on a global epistemology that privileges the Global North as the normative benchmark from which to define progress. Framed by southern criminology, we offer an alternative way of theorizing the progress of women in policing using women’s police stations that emerged in Latin America in the 1980s, specifically those in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.