printThe Policewoman Image in the Perception of the Internal Affairs Ministry Universities‘ Cadets in Russia
Savchenko I.A.
Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof., Head of the International Cross-Disciplinary Laboratory “Research Methods in Social Science”, Department of Philosophy, Sociology and the Theory of Social Communication, Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod; Prof. of the Department of Philosophy, Nizhniy Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia teosmaco@rambler.ru
The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant 23-18-00288 Discursive Transformations of the Modern City).
For citation:
Savchenko I.A. The Policewoman Image in the Perception of the Internal Affairs Ministry Universities‘ Cadets in Russia. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2023. No 12. P. 108-120
Abstract
The discourse of a city (small, large, metropolitan) according to the hypothesis tested by the author significantly affects the social perception of a policewoman. To test the hypothesis, a survey of future police officers (cadets of universities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, N = 747) was conducted in 2022–2023. It was found that young cadets from small towns do not see their possible leaders in female colleagues, but they are ready for the fact that a policewoman will acquire masculine qualities. Unlike young men from regional centers and metropolitan cities they often see female colleagues as possible wives and partners. Female cadets from small towns see themselves in the future primarily as “breadwinners of the family”, while girls from big cities are police leaders (but they want to see a man as their boss). For girls from large and very large cities, equality means, first of all, equal (with men) prospects for social mobility. At the same time, for girls from small towns, it consists in the same working conditions as men, and young men from big cities and megacities understand equality in a similar way. Young men from such cities declaratively recognize gender equality, but doubt the service and organizational abilities of female colleagues.
Keywords
policewoman; urban and corporate discourses; type of city; stereotypes; social perception; internal affairs bodies; gender equality
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Content No 12, 2023