| Summary: | 碩士 === 世新大學 === 社會發展研究所(含碩專班) === 94 === Based upon theories of patriarchal control and Foucault’s theory of discipline, this study analyzes the lives of female police officers, from the reasons for entering the police force, the process of police training to the job arrangements after the training, and the possibility of individual resistance after entering police force.
This study discovers that most subjects initially did not take police as their ideal job. However, in the end, under the influence of both the economic and patriarchal structures, they “chose” to enter a professional realm that is traditionally viewed as male occupation – police force, an extreme field of patriarchy. Police training system takes advantage of economic structure to form rules of control, using various voluntary and assurance contracts to keep women with low economic status. Furthermore, through such disciplining methods as “micro-penalty,”“time-table,” “activity control,” “permeable surveillance,” and “ceremonial exercise,” police training system not only deconstructs the subjectivity of female body, creating “docile body,” but also gives rises to police identification.
However, as the becoming of polices is always under the influence of patriarchal structure, two types of female police officers are intertwined with patriarchy – one seeks to return to traditional female roles, while the other contrives to take the traditional male positions. Regardless of which type she becomes, a female police is always within the patriarchal symbolic order, being forced to take “feminine” positions and being identified as “outsider” in police groups. In this circumstance, each type of female police formulates different surviving strategies in police force:
1.For those who seek to return to traditional female roles, they would display as clearly as possible their “feminine qualities” through manners and behaviors, and search for job satisfaction and improve professional abilities through transference system; the end is to keep a secure and stable police job. In other words, after police training, when the job arrangement is again taken over by patriarchal symbolic order, these female police officers have a chance to find their own way to situate themselves satisfactorily in a masculine professional realm.
2.For those who contrive to take traditionally male positions, they would put lots of effort hiding their “feminine qualities” in manners and behaviors. They would aggressively seek and take opportunities to show their abilities in learning and practicing the masculine way; try to adapt the masculine language and culture; and put aside their family issues. All these are for a chance to become part of the police “in-group.” Yet, while they seek fairness, these female police officers more often than not disregard the gender differences, assimilating themselves with male perspectives and ignoring the importance of social reproduction.
Furthermore, both types of female police are shaped to be “docile body” through the cooperation of patriarchal structure and disciplining institutes. That is, after her body loses its subjectivity, she is no longer able to generate power of resistance. Looking at the economic structure, female police officers often relinquish their chance of resistance because the relatively high salary and security of a police job, especially when they are not sufficient in any other professions. Once they enter the police force, their economic life is inseparable from their “career.” In other words, female police officers surrender themselves to the laboring process of police force because of their “goal-oriented” economic needs; in such situation, these “docile bodies” would not have generated strategies of resistance.
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