Challenging traditional beliefs about gender, Gerber develops a new model for understanding gender--the status model of gender stereotyping. She examines how expectations about status and gender impact police offers who work together as partners. Her study includes same-sex police partnerships as well as partnerships in which a woman works with a man.

Interviews with police officers highlight the findings from Gerber's large-scale study of police partnerships. She explores what underlies gender stereotyping--why men appear to have more assertive or instrumental personality traits and women appear to have more accommodating or expressive traits. According to Gerber's status model, instrumental traits are associated with high status, and expressive traits are associated with low status; therefore, men and women only appear to have different personality traits because men have higher status than women. The book provides a provocative analysis for scholars and researchers in gender studies, criminal justice, psychology, and sociology, as well as for those involved in the supervision and training of police.