WOMEN IN BANGLADESH POLICE: A STUDY ON GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Policing has been known for so long as a masculine profession unsuitable for
women since women lack the aggressiveness, roughness and physical prowess.
This myth about the police job reinforced by the social and the cultural barriers
forbids women to choose police as a profession. However, over time, the women have been breaking the male bastion to take up police job as a profession. But
their performance is measured in the context of established male standard which
have rendered them virtually invisible in the realm of equity model at least in
terms of contribution to this profession. In such context, the present study makes
an attempt to examine the problems, issues and social perception emerging out
of the role of women police in Bangladesh from the gender perspective. However,
the study, based on a survey with a sample size of 100, represents about 4.63%
of the total population consisting of different subordinate officers of Bangladesh
police. Within a patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal social system, a large
number of Bangladeshi women working in the formal and informal sectors
contribute to the transformation of the traditional values and gender roles of
Bangladeshi women. In the new paradigm of security and liberty of women, it is,
therefore, imperative to integrate the security perspective of the women into the
enforcement ethos of police strategies. In spite of the traditional gender based
impediments, women shall have to be integrated into the core policing so as to
give new impetus to the enforcement apparatus of the country in the present
democratic setting. All members of the Bangladesh police in particular and the
society in general shall have to be more dynamic, pragmatic and positive in
helping to overcome the role conflicts encountered by the women police.