Female Police Officers in Pakistan - by Sadaf Ahmad (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book examines female police officers' experiences in Pakistan and the extent to which they can effect gendered and organisational change.

Book Synopsis

Pakistan's police have historically displayed significant apathy towards recruiting women, considering them unsuitable for this profession

. The social stigma of working in a notorious, male-dominated organization has also prevented many women from joining in the past. Today, female police officers comprise just over 3% of the Pakistani police. This book is the first to examine their experiences within it. It draws on extensive ethnographic research on female police officers of all ranks in cities across Pakistan to illustrate the diversity of their recruitment, roles, experiences, and career prospects across rank, cadre, and region. It also demonstrates how female officers are combatting patriarchal challenges to make greater inroads into a masculine terrain, taking on diverse roles, and playing an increasingly important role in supporting women's access to justice, and why these changes cannot be conflated with the idea that these will automatically and radically transform the organization itself.

Review Quotes

"This is an important work, the kind that advances our understanding of changing gendered power relations, women's agency, and social transformations occurring throughout Pakistan. It addresses the important issue of policing which has been shrouded in controversy due to the fears most women have of going to a police station. Ahmed deftly addresses the impact of the introduction of female police officers and female police stations and the actual multi-faceted impacts they have had on both society and on the lives of the women police officers themselves." --Anita M. Weiss, Professor Emerita, University of Oregon, USA

"A groundbreaking, richly nuanced study, this book shatters simplistic narratives about women in policing by centering the diverse experiences of Pakistani female officers. Through ethnographic insight and intersectional analysis, it reveals how gender, region, rank, and institutional culture intersect to shape their roles in a complex, evolving security landscape." --Venessa Garcia, Professor, New Jersey City University, USA

"Grounded in meticulous ethnographic research, Sadaf Ahmad offers a profound rethinking of gender and policing. Tracing the experiences of female officers in Pakistan, this outstanding book reveals how history, politics, and intra-national variations shape policing, while critically interrogating dominant gendered narratives on police socialisation, violence and corruption. A must-read for scholars, practitioners, and students interested in global perspectives of policing and reform." --Melissa Jardine, PhD, Fellow, Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Association

About the Author

Sadaf Ahmad is Associate Professor of Anthropology in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at Syracuse University in the USA and is the author of Transforming Faith: A Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism Among Urban Pakistani Women.