Women Studying Violent Male Institutions:

Abstract

To promote discussions of methodological issues associated with cross-gender research in criminology, we focus on two women's studies of Latin American police. This uncovered five working propositions about women studying organizations dominated numerically and structurally by men. First, feminist scholarship provides some guidelines for such research, but its applicability is neither direct nor immediate. Second, for example, much cross-gender research requires negotiating and maintaining power differentials between researcher and researched. Third, particularly in cross-gender research on secrecy and danger, inter-gender dynamics can thwart some research objectives and promote others. Fourth, inter-gender dynamics can complicate the ethical dilemmas associated with research on powerful agents and agencies of the state. Finally, the emotional reflexivity associated with such inter-gender research is epistemologically relevant for understanding research outcomes.