Synopses & Reviews
Women's Police Stations examines the changing and complex relationship between women and the state, and the construction of gendered citizenship. These are police stations run exclusively by police women for women with the authority to investigate crimes against women, such as domestic violence, assault, and rape. São Paulo was the home of the first such police station, and there are now more than 300 women's police stations throughout Brazil. Cecilia MacDowell Santos examines the importance of this phenomenon in book form for the first time, looking at the dynamics of the relationship between women and the state as a consequence of a political regime as well as other factors, and exploring the notion of gendered citizenship.
Review
"A unique opportunity to explore the relationship between feminist mobilization, the state, and constructions of violence against women."--Nancy Naples, University of California, Irvine
"An important and much-needed book about the evolving relation between Brazil's male-oriented justice system, feminist activism and ordinary citizens' understandings of gender and women's rights. Santos takes her readers inside the world of São Paulo's women's police stations, where female police officers with varying ideas about police work encounter a diverse citizenry that has suffered from sexual violence. This is a story about Brazil's experiment in democratization, as it works on the ground."--Edward Telles, University of California at Los Angeles
"The complex and contradictory evolution of gender politics in contemporary society is beautifully captured in Cecilia MacDowell Santos rich and compelling ethnographic observations of Brazils new “womens police stations”. Santos analysis of the interplay of the state (including police women), civil society (most especially feminist NGOs) and individual women seeking justice is original, innovative and theoretically sophisticated. Analysts of gender, students of the state and activists alike will find her work insightful and illuminating." -- Peter Evans, Marjorie Meyer Eliaser Chair of International Studies, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley
About the Author
Cecilia MacDowell Santos is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of San Francisco.
Table of Contents
The Birth of the World's First Women's Police Station * Engendering Policewomen's Interests and Identities * Feminist Debates Over the Meaning of Violence against Women * Constructing Crimes and Engendering a Contradictory Citizenship * Engendering Battered Women's Sense of Rights
The Birth of the World's First Women's Police Station * Engendering Policewomen's Interests and Identities * Feminist Debates over the Meaning of Violence against Women * Constructing Crimes and Engendering a Contradictory Citizenship * Engendering Battered Women's Sense of Rights