Need a few minutes of your time

[Smurfette_76]

Stop hitting on the woman in the middle of the thread I've got to show to my Professor tomorrow!!!

ROFL

PS-she didn't say no to the Harley, though.

[RoadKingTrooper]

Stop hitting on the woman in the middle of the thread I've got to show to my Professor tomorrow!!!

ROFL

PS-she didn't say no to the Harley, though.

Gawd Smurf I feel really....................awful, how can I atone for this and make things right again with you?

I know! If you will provide me the names and emails of ALL the redheads who responded, I will make a personal apology to each and every Harley lover.

(Please don't hurt me Honey! ROLMAO, been waiting for you to do this)

[Smurfette_76]

On your hands and knees, too, no doubt.

(smart ***, I hope he doesn't figure out how to read the words in white. NOT that he'd be the least bit surprised.)

[RoadKingTrooper]

Woof Woof LOL!

[Sr. Sgt.]

My department is 78 sworn, but only 44 in patrol. There are 7 females in patrol, two in detectives, one in the pro-act department, one LT in the admin section, and me, but I count in the patrol number. I am the only female sergeant.

-Women still face bias from male officers.
I don't think we face any bias from most of the officers. There are still a couple hold-outs who don't think women belong in the profession, but they know to keep their opinions to their self or face the wrath of everyone else. We face the same bias as any new officer. You have to prove yourself. Our town is only about 42,000, but we are the biggest town for a couple of hours in every direction, so everyone from around the area commutes here to work, shop, eat, visit friends, and hang out. The bars and restaurants are always packed around here. There may have been biases out there among the town's people, but they were mostly gone by the time I was hired because the females' whose foot steps I followed in were all very well respected.

-Many police departments lack strategies for recruiting women
I don’t know of any strategies they use, but there are always a several women who test for us and at least a few make the final list, several near the top.

-Women officers may face gender discrimination and a 'glass ceiling' that inhibits promotion
From what I have seen, everything from our initial testing to get hired all the way through our promotional testing, everything is equal. We are all tested the same and the ranking comes out. We are hired/promoted based on how well we do.


-sexual harassment still occurs in many police department
I wouldn’t say what goes on here is sexual harassment, but there have been some complaints from the civilian staff that the comments from both the male and female officers are out of line and offending. My thoughts are, if you don’t like it, go work in a church office where you won’t hear offensive language. Most of the females would get mad if the guys all got to see a hilarious, but totally sexual, email or text message, but we were excluded.


-there are few mentoring programs for women officers.
There is nothing official about our mentoring program. If the new female can hold her own, does her job, and isn’t a badge-bunny, then she gets to be invited over to the girls nights where we sit around, drink beer or wine, and BS about everything from work, to husbands/boyfriends, to horror stories about how our bodies work and being pregnant. Plus, most of us have been selected to be FTOs over the years, so there is always a few weeks in a car with one of the female FTOs, regardless if you are a male or female.

Unfortunately, I think our department is unique in the way we are treated and viewed.

Hope this helps.

[Smurfette_76]

Thanks, Sarge. I was hoping to get another female point of view. I'm sitting here typing up the final paper (due tonight at 1800) and now have 5 women and 20 men respondants.

Thanks

[Smurfette_76]

Just to add to this thread. My agency is approximatley 100 sworn serving 35K people. We have 1/3 women. Both capts are female, split on the Lts, half of CID to include narcs and forensics, the rest are in patrol. Several are seconds on the shifts and FTO. We have, in comparison to agencies around us, an extremely high number of females. None of our SRO are female

[Sr. Sgt.]

Thanks, Sarge. I was hoping to get another female point of view. I'm sitting here typing up the final paper (due tonight at 1800) and now have 5 women and 20 men respondants.

Thanks

No problem. Glad I had some free time tonight to check the forums.

[Retired96]

I was on the Sgts promotion list when the Bowman case took effect back in 1986 with LASD. At that time it said that 10% of Sgt. promotions had to be females. The Dept. would promote 25-35 people at a time until the entire list had been promoted. In my case they promoted to one spot from me, skipped me and went down about 30 positions to promote the next female on the list. I had to wait about 4 months before they started promotions again at which time I was the first in line. This continued for a few years. When the final list came out I had a Deputy that worked for me that was 450 on the list of 506.
The Dept. promoted number 449 and then passed over everyone to promote the last female who was 506 on the list. The promotion list was then terminated.

I don't care if your male or female, black, brown green or purple, People should not be promoted just because of their race or gender.

[Nikk]

I missed this earlier, so sorry I'm late to the party...

I would say our agency is mid-sized, but we have very few females where I am now. I make myself flexible and available as much as I can for times when they need a female.

My experiences may not be the "norm" since besides being female, I am half-Tsalagi (Cherokee) and I'm my father's daughter (my dad was a very respected retired Chief and consultant for the BCA, we have the same last name, naturally, so that I was related to him was pretty common knowledge.) So all of those things play some part in how coworkers respond to me. I'll try to just stick to the female part!

It is still a bit of of Good Ole Boys culture, but I think it has come a long ways. I was fortunate in the early stages because my Training Officer and mentor, Bril*, did not seem to have any preconceived issues with females and treated me the same as anyone else, and an added bonus was that if Bril thought you were OK, others tended to accept you. He liked the way my mind processed information. We had one encounter very early on that got physical and he was impressed with how I handled it, so I was lucky to get that first "how will she be able to handle X" out of the way, I guess. It seems that a physical encounter is the an important "test" for women to pass. (*"Bril" is a nickname, so no I'm not revealing an officer's name here. It's because his hair looks like he has a Brillo pad sitting on top of his head! lol)

I'm only 5'4" and very slender, so that was a concern for the men I work with. I think it was more of a concern than it would be if I was a 5'4" slender male. (Now they love having someone who can get into confined spaces! lol)

I didn't experience sexual harassment myself, but there was that beginning time frame where you could tell they were scrutinizing how I'd react to different types of comments.

Where I really noticed a difference was when I returned to duty after The Incident when I was very badly injured (hit by a car). We've had 2 men in our dept who have been struck by cars and later returned to work, and they seemed to be accepted right back in. With me they (some guys, not all) seemed sure I'd freak out at the sight of headlights or be afraid around traffic, they were concerned that every little bump or bruise I got was going to re-injure me. I'd had to re-qualify all physical and psych standards to be able to return, I was probably in even better physical shape than when I first started, but they seemed sure I was going to fall apart. I had to prove myself again, which was kind of odd to me.

As for recruiting or promoting women, I think saying "Women encouraged to apply" or something is plenty. I feel my agency hires and promotes based on qualifications and I wouldn't want it any other way. I know as I move up some wonder if it's "just" because I'm female and they had a "quota" of women they had to promote, so I prove myself all over again. But then, anyone taking on a new position has to prove themselves.

Whenever there is a long standing discriminatory practice, such as not promoting a qualified woman simply because she's a women, the desire to correct it seems to swing to far the other way - promoting a women simply because she's a woman and passing up more qualified candidates. I don't agree with that. I understand the concept is to play catch up, to get more women into positions that were formerly not open to them and should have been, but in the long run it hurts the need for women to be seen as equal. Kind of a two-steps-forward and one-step-back. I like to think my promotions wouldn't be questioned because I'm clearly qualified.

I'm kind of rambling... hope I've made some sort of sense!

[Smurfette_76]

Ironically, Nikk "two-steps-forward and one-step-back" is the title I chose for the final paper/presentation. LOL

Thank you for your post. I can't use it in the paper per se because I was up at 0600 finishing it for class tonight, but I can use it in the presentation.

[Lookn2Improve]

[QUOTE=Nikk;1990654]

I'm only 5'4" and very slender, so that was a concern for the men I work with. I think it was more of a concern than it would be if I was a 5'4" slender male. (Now they love having someone who can get into confined spaces! lol)



hahaha love it! the guys think this is great as well.....just a few weeks ago two of my fellow deputies practically tossed me up on a second story roof to check a door for an alarm...they were happy i was available.

[School Cop]

Update time, Smurfette... How did the presentation go?

[Presence 1*]

I'd love to read your paper, if you'd be willing to share it with me!

[patroldog]

First let me say i have no belief in "Quotas" of any kind, it is what it is. Secondly i have no qualms with female officers, i work for a small agency with 4-5 patrol units covering 670 square miles. I have been working directly with a female officer for 8 months, i have absolutely no complaints with this lady. She's on time, never complains of calls assigned, is willing to help out as needed, and goes above and beyond the call of duty. I have been proud to work with her and to call her "My Partner". Women do belong.