2. The Early Years

This chapter describes the contexts and early development of policewomen in the west and in China. There are many similarities in terms of the broad patterns (i.e. policewomen handle women and children-related police tasks), but there are also differences in the contexts giving rise to the introduction of policewomen. Then we introduce the predecessors of policewomen in Hong Kong—female searchers and mui-tsai inspectors—and how the lobbying by women’s groups (in turn influenced by developments in Britain) led to the recruitment of the first woman sub-inspector of police and then the first cohort of women recruit police constables. We describe the recruitment, training and tasks of early policewomen in the 1950s and 1960s. The division of labour between policemen and policewomen was very clear, but even though gender essentialism was the underlying factor for this division, there were some subtle changes in what were considered tasks that “men cannot do”. Instead of sex segregation where police officers deal with victims and suspects of the same sex, now policewomen have been found to have essentialised feminine qualities which have made them more suitable for certain tasks.