In this introduction we provide an overview of research on gender issues in the rescue services in combination with introducing the different contributions in this book. The overview is primarily concerned with three national contexts; the U.S., the U.K. and Sweden, and we focus on the most prevalent themes in the literature as well as pointing out under-researched areas. The empirical contributions in this volume draw on empirical work from Sweden, the U.K. and Denmark.

Our aim in this book is to show how the rescue services constitutes a fertile ground for epistemological and methodological concerns in contemporary gender studies, including feminist theory, masculinity and sexuality studies. We also believe that the critical perspective offered by interdisciplinary gender studies can provide new perspectives on emergency work and crisis management in a broader sense.As this area of research is still in an early stage, and this book is (to our knowledge) the first collected volume dealing with gender and rescue services, we also want to introduce prevalent themes in the academic literature as well as pointing out neglected areas.