{"id":253,"date":"2020-09-28T06:44:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T06:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/?p=253"},"modified":"2020-09-28T06:44:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T06:44:49","slug":"women-in-policing-breaking-barriers-and-blazing-a-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/2020\/09\/28\/women-in-policing-breaking-barriers-and-blazing-a-path\/","title":{"rendered":"Women In Policing: Breaking Barriers And Blazing A Path"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Chief Penny Harrington, the first woman chief of a major American police department \u2014 the Portland (Oregon) Police Bureau \u2014 and co-founder of the National Center for Women &amp; Policing. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Harrington started as an officer with the Portland Police Bureau in 1964, there were only 12 women in the department. She faced widespread challenges over the course of her career, ranging from blatant harassment and sexism to many iterations of body armor that did not fit or protect women\u2019s bodies. Although many of the challenges that Harrington and other women faced still exist, her remarks illuminated some of the progress that women in policing have made over the past few decades. Although attendees were heartened by the progress that has been made, they noted that, in many ways, \u201cwe\u2019re still fighting the same fight that she fought then.\u201d (P3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><span class=\"has-inline-color has-vivid-red-color\">Barrier<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Law enforcement attendees spoke at length about the barriers they had personally faced over the course of their careers, such as the \u201cboys club,\u201d adverse or hostile environments, explicit and subtle harassment, sexism, skewed physical fitness assessments, double standards, and a lack of support and opportunity. (P4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many of the barriers to women in policing are not specific to policing; rather, they are reflective of larger societal issues and will take time and commitment to improve. One officer said citizens would ask when the \u201creal police\u201d would arrive when she and her female partner responded to a call. \u201cThat\u2019s a broader cultural mindset barrier, not internal to the police department,\u201d [&#8230;]\u201cWe can talk about this as a policing problem, but this is an endemic problem in our society. (P4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Several officers said they nearly left law enforcement because of this. \u201cNo one valued me on the job,\u201d [&#8230;] \u201cWe teach police officers that everything is a threat. For women, not only can they not trust the people they\u2019re policing, they also can\u2019t trust the people who are supposed to have their backs. This is incredibly damaging to women.\u201d (P8)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some attendees agreed that harassment and sexism are normalized to the extent that, often, only the most egregious cases are reported. \u201cI don\u2019t think of myself as harassed, ever,\u201d said one officer, \u201cbut a lot of the things I experience would be considered harassment in another field.\u201d (P8)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read The Study <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncjrs.gov\/pdffiles1\/nij\/252963.pdf\">Here<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences","category-women-on-the-force","tag-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/clarissamartins\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}