He’s "distressed"/she’s "oppressed" : police, psychology, and the patriarchy

• Main Author: McClellan, Miriam Ann
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5967

The purpose of a feminist postmodern deconstruction is to reveal the gender ideology and hidden political context embedded within the language of the text. This research project applies this methodology to a body of selected texts concerning women and men in policing as contained in The Journal of Police Science and Administration . This journal is representative of the type and focus of traditional empirical studies on police officers. The deconstruction of these texts reveals how the lives of women and men are inadequately theorized or described in traditional empirical psychology, as feminist criticisms of psychology have noted. Also revealed is the establishment of police psychology as an adjunct of policing and together they convey the masculine as normative. In this way, psychology and policing adhere to the dominant discourse of patriarchy that marginalizes women's transforming contributions to both these fields. This analysis indicates how using the perspectives of feminist postmodernism can help design and implement research that achieves an emancipatory psychology. In turn, the results of this study influence recommendations for counselling psychology. === Education, Faculty of === Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of === Graduate