Television representations and professional femininities: The case of the UK police

This article explores female occupational identity construction by looking at the issue of media representations of women’s police work in the United Kingdom. The example, television representation, discussed here, is the character of Sergeant Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley, a UK police drama written by a UK-based playwright, Sally Wainwright. As the lead character in Happy Valley, Sergeant Catherine Cawood’s on-screen portrayal will be the focus of the discussion in this article. Building on findings from previous research undertaken by the author, which explored how gendered identities of women police professionals are represented in the media, this article argues that television representations of UK female police work portray a particular form of professional femininity, one which I argue is still highly ‘gendered’, mainly because such representation of women’s police work relies on narratives centred on the effective and competent use of ‘emotional labour’.