Constructing and Negotiating Gender in Women's Police Stations in Brazil

In 1985, in a gesture motivated both by progressive politics and political opportunism, the state government of Sao Paulo, Brazil, inaugurated the country's-indeed, the world's-first of many all-female police stations charged with investigating and prosecuting cases of violence against women. ground-breaking recognition of this gender-specific aspect of crime by the state was unprecedented in Brazil and indeed the women's precinct structure is unparalleled anywhere in the world (Alvarez, 1989: 237). The idea behind its creation was that the traditional institutional response to grievances of violence against women was inadequate and even discriminatory. Police, almost always men, routinely ignored and rarely prosecuted cases of physical and sexual abuse of women and often blamed and harassed the victims. These female police stations or delegacias de defesa da mulher (hereafter referred to as DDMs) began in Sao Paulo as an experimental institutional response to the deficiencies of the regular police stations. The DDMs represent a great achievement on the part of the Brazilian women's movement, but their location within the civil police engenders many political contradictions. The very existence of a feminist-inspired institution within the coercive arm of the state seems paradoxical, especially considering Brazil's history of military rule and police repression of resistance movements. However, it could also be seen as a necessary component of Brazil's transition to a multiparty democratic system. The DDMs are one of many civil initiatives to be implemented since the end of military rule, representing a systematic effort to legitimate the new regime and the position of the leading party or parties therein. Thus the role of the DDMs in Brazilian society is politically rather ambiguous.