Mulheres em profissões consideradas masculinas: construção da identidade policial das mulheres na polícia

Abstract

In this work we focus on the experiences of women within the police in the first and sixth police stations of Maputo City in order to understand how they build their police identity. For a long time the police was a profession that barred the entry of women, due to socio- cultural issues. Because it was reserved to the private sphere, where his job was to look after the house, the children and the husband. Today, there are an increasing number of women integrating the police forces, which reasoning in questioning the construction of identity in this profession. We use social construction of reality from Berger and Luckmann (1978) to understand the encounter between the values of the police institution and the experiences that women carry with them of their past. That was done based on the qualitative approach. The analysis and interpretation of data allowed us to note that within the police institution, there are women in head positions, as well as subordinate, and some women face difficulties in their promotion and others state to share the same opportunities with male colleagues. The police is a profession with rules, principles and values that are transmitted and expected to be fulfilled by police, however, the data show that women build their identity based on these, as well as with the knowledge they bring before becoming members of the corporation. Thus, honesty, loyalty, sincerity are associated with sensitivity and female passivity to avoid recourse to violence. We conclude that the construction of police identity does not imply the abandonment of their feminine traits, nor the rejection of what is transmitted in their profession before it occurs through the conjugation of two universes, which may resemble and not resemble from men