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Token Female Police Officers Or Police Exemplars: An Evaluation Of The Theory Of Tokenism, Cameron Michael Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Despite gains in the percentage of female police officers over past decades, female police officers are vastly underrepresented in modern policing. Female police officers face barriers to integration into policing and the surrounding culture that male police officers do not face, including unbalanced physical testing, double standards for success, and others. One explanation for the different experiences of female police officers compared to male police officers is the token status of women in policing. Instead of taking the token status of female police officers for granted, this study explored the utility of the theory of tokenism (Kanter, 1977) in explaining …

Feminist Consciousness And Social Capital: Bonds, Breaks, And Bridges, Beverly A. Beyer

Master's Theses - Sociology and Anthropology

Through in-depth qualitative interviews with five current or former members of a midwestern National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter, this thesis explores four related research questions regarding: growth of feminist consciousness; how feminist ideology affects the evolution of social networks, and vice versa; the impact of intersecting social hierarchies; and feminism as a force for bonding and bridging social capital in the local community context. Analytical tools include feminist methodology, the articulation model, an understanding of intersecting social hierarchies, and grounded theory.

Participants each explained their gradual identification with feminism differently as a result of specific life experiences, although common …