Both Sides of the Thin Blue Line
Speech delivered by Pru Goward, Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Women and Policing Globally Conference, National Convention Centre, Canberra, 20 October 2002
Thank you Commissioner Nixon, The Australasian Council for Women & Policing, The Australian Federal Police and The International Association for Women Police for inviting me here this afternoon.
It is a great honour to have been invited to address such an august gathering of women in law enforcement from around the world. It is wonderful to feel the friendship and emotion and support in the room and to be part of it.
Policing for women remains one of the great challenges and while we are all proud to have Christine Nixon as the first state police commissioner, nobody would disagree when I say there is still a long way to go for us in Australia and, perhaps, for other countries also. It does seem extraordinary that in 2002 we are still racking up firsts like the first woman police commissioner and that the mother of all firsts, the first woman Australian Prime Minister, still seems a generation away.
However, as women working in what is recognised as one of the most masculinised professions in the world, you share not just those frustrations, but the every day frustrations of every day work.
Reference to international figures confirms that women are poorly represented in police forces all around the world.
You all have had the experience therefore of entering a male dominated profession as part of a minority.
In Australia, for example in 2001 women made up 18.9 per cent of all sworn officers [1] - and this is an impressive increase; in 1995 they made up only 13.5 per cent. [2]
Then, you all have the common experience of working in this male dominated profession - Of working in this highly gendered organisation and often within sexually hostile work environments.
In 1998 in the Australian state of Victoria a female serving police officer brought complaints of sexual harassment and victimisation, by against the Victorian Police and various individual police officers.
Her experience may be rare however it confirms that a police force may still be sexually hostile.
As recapped in the Tribunal's findings:
... from the moment of her arrival ... the complainant noticed that the atmosphere was quite different from any other place she had been at in her career. She found the treatment of women very different. Men would constantly tell demeaning sexual jokes in her presence and would make 'snide comments all over the place on a day to day basis about women and their role', saying that a woman's place was in the home, the bedroom or the kitchen.
She tried to tell the men that she didn't appreciate the remarks; she tried walking out and ignoring the remarks but nothing seemed to work.
It is not uncommon for crude conversations and jokes, the display of pornographic material, the consistent talk about sex, and sexual innuendos to occur in male dominated workplaces - that's why they are called sexually hostile workplaces.
You are expected to put up with it because, as we say in Australia, you are the 'sheila' amongst the 'blokes'. And again, in Australia, the greatest put down of all to those who complain is "can't you take a joke?"
The police force is one such work environment. It has been described as created for men, by men. [3]
According to Wendy Austin's paper on the socialisation of police women, the force values masculine traits such as physical strength and exploits of violence- traditionally essential to good police work although less so today. But boasting about sexual encounters or feats of drinking, other, less admirable aspects of masculine behaviour, were also highly valued.
There is often the belief a woman officer will not respond as capably in a physical confrontation as a male officer - the fact is however that very little police time is actually taken up in physical confrontation. Further, is there any evidence of this? This would make an excellent PhD topic since it is a claim made against women police officers and women in armed combat.
In the late 90s, a series of focus groups was run with members of the Australian Federal Police Force. [4]
Participants were asked what a man has to do to be successful in the police force and, what a woman has to do to be successful in the police force.
The most frequently cited response about what men have to do to be successful was 'perform, work hard and be competent.'
For women the top response was 'be more competent than a man, be 110 per cent, be bigger, better, brighter and more beautiful, make no mistakes, be a super performer, be 150 per cent.'
Applying these standards for promotion - it is little wonder men find themselves in the top jobs quicker and more often than women!
At the Australasian Women in Policing Conference held in 1996 a female police officer recalled her experiences as a junior officer.
She remembered being ordered out of the police car and back in the station when violent confrontations were expected; and forced to work in the station every Friday and Saturday night for months on end, because her supervisor was frightened she would get hurt. [5]
This 'caring' behaviour is unwarranted and detrimental to women. It fosters the attitude that their position in the police force is a favour, out of the ordinary, and that they are not quite up to it. It is the reverse of sexual hostility. Together they make the two sides of the Discrimination coin.
All this makes it difficult for women to progress in this occupation, as reflected in the figures - the higher up the police hierarchy we look - the less women we find.
Recent data shows that in Australia women comprise 34.9 per cent of probationary constables, 28.7 per cent of constables, 16.5 per cent of senior constables, 7.2 per cent of sergeants, 5.1 per cent of senior sergeants and 2.9 per cent of senior executives. [6]
The lack of female a presence in these higher positions means there is a lack of female leadership in the police force.
This means the police force has a leadership lacking in diversity.
This is a universal problem and nobody wins- not the police, the safety of the community, not women. I am sure I do not need to remind you of the dangers of "group think" in a leadership group.
You're more likely to come up with the best solution if everyone in the leadership team tosses in a different answer than if everyone starts out with the same idea. At least there's a choice.
You are also more likely to facilitate change in the way you do things if you have a pool of leaders who think and do things differently.
This is what we need, a new way of thinking about how we make police forces all around the world more female friendly work environments, indeed more diversity-friendly environments, more merit-friendly environments. We also need a new way of thinking about how women are policed.
Rape, for example, still suffers one of the lowest report rates of any violent crime in Australia; in large part that low reportage reflects the lack of confidence among victims that they will be helped and dealt with appropriately by the criminal justice system. Likewise, domestic violence remains an intractable crime, in part reflecting the lack of confidence women have in the system, the belief that it will not stop the beatings for them to report it, and it could well, on balance, make their lives worse.
Because ultimately policing is subjective. It takes judgement. It requires making decisions about who to police, when and how- and what crimes have priority.
Right now the way women are policed in Australia is reflective of community values- but it also inevitably based on male decisions about what is appropriate, acceptable and excepted behaviour for women, because men still run the police force. We would have a same but different problem if women ran the police force, the point is we need both.
Rape and Domestic Violence are two crimes that reflect the subjectivity of policing, but the treatment of indigenous women is also a barometer of how values-driven police work is.
Like many Indigenous people around the world, Australia's Indigenous people make up this country's most disadvantaged and also over-policed group.
Over-policing generally results from the imposition of police control on individuals and community activities at a level unlikely to occur in the broader community.
In Australia women are over policed in public spaces.
So much so that, according to analysts such as Chris Cuneen, women are more likely to be detained for public order offences than men. [7]
This is even more so the case for Indigenous women, who comprise nearly 80 per cent of all cases where women are detained in police custody for public drunkenness.
Why are women over-policed in public spaces?
This is an excellent research topic but in the absence of any definitive answer, allow me to speculate. Perhaps it is because those police make policing decisions - in the main senior duty police officers who are predominantly white and male - will make arrest decisions based on their ideas about what is appropriate behaviour for women in public places.
Even today, it is considered most unladylike to drink or swear in public. Thirty years ago, I remember it was not considered ladylike for a woman to smoke in the street. Women certainly did not go into bars and Dad had to bring Mum a beer in the car where she sat with we four children, because it was so unacceptable for her to even be seen in the lounge of a hotel. Today that no longer holds, but it reminds us that only a short time ago society had different rules for the behaviour of men and women in public, rules we find laughable today. Today, it is still considered much more unacceptable for women than men to swear loudly, cat call, hassle bystanders, wolf-whistle or drink too much in the street or in a park or a bar; that is still quite beyond the limit.
So when women do, it is noticed and it is policed.
The visibility of Indigenous women in public makes them even more likely to have their behaviour policed - especially if they are consuming alcohol in a public place, or on the footpath.
It is hardly surprising then that Indigenous women are in prison, with alarming frequency, for committing public order offences.
A self report study in the Kimberly region of Western Australia found that one in three Aboriginal women in the region has been locked up in a prison cell on one or more occasions - most for public drunkenness or an offence related to public disorder. Now citizens are entitled to be able to be in a public place peaceably and without being assaulted or harassed by others and it is the duty of the police to uphold that entitlement and maintain order. But one in three women in a community being incarcerated is a phenomenal rate for what is essentially a trivial offence. Our governments and police leaders do have a duty to consider whether or not the public order laws are being applied fairly, without discrimination. The consequences of incarceration, in particular the consequences for self esteem and for its role in confirming the person's worthlessness, powerlessness and criminality, and thus for the likelihood of recidivism, make the importance of keeping indigenous women out of prison for trivial offences even more important.
Nobody in Australia doubts the importance of keeping Indigenous families in tact for the survival and improvement of Indigenous people. The rate of family breakdown in Indigenous communities has had and continues to play a significant role in ensuring Indigenous Australians remain at the bottom of the heap; the poorest, the least likely to be employed, the most likely to die young and have their children die. Locking their mothers up at the rate of one in three is no way to tackle what is undoubtedly our most disturbing and persistent social problem, to say nothing of the double disadvantage this inflicts on Indigenous women.
Having more women police officers I am sure has the ability to change the way women are policed. For no other reason, that is a good reason for advancing more women in the police force, to say nothing of the interests of women themselves.
What's more, promoting women to more senior positions within the police force has the potential to change the culture and promote a flexible diversity that promotes excellence.
This is because a good female leader in any profession will bring with her not only an understanding of the needs of more junior women coming up behind her but is more likely to understand the needs of female clients, staff, voters and consumers than her male counterpart and may be more likely to advance these. Yes, we can all think of Queen Bees who actually hated other women, but fortunately Queen bees only live a season, before their selfish gluttony condemns them to the past.
This is not because a female leader is a "better person" than her male colleague, or because she does not hold any sexist assumptions herself, but because her woman's life experience will inevitably affect her judgement and outlook. Her experience as a poor child, a rich child, a Protestant or Catholic, Muslim or Jew, a black child or a migrant child will also be part of her life experience and affect her outlook and judgement and in this profession, her policing decisions.
Changing the makeup of the leadership is the catalyst for real change.
However changing the policing of women, and the police force as a sexually hostile work environment, requires more than just a shift in rank and numbers within the force.
There are other steps that need to be taken.
First, women in male dominated industries often have little contact with other women in their industries.
Women need to establish and foster contacts, generate discussion on issues such as work and family and promotional opportunities, and ensure that women's issues are not kept on the sidelines. This Women in Policing Globally conference is clearly part of that strategy and within Australia there appears to be a strong network of women police officers. With the labour shortages emerging in Australia, as in other developed countries, your issues are also being recognised by male police leaders who should be only too keen to be part of and promote these networks.
But networking at any level needs to be about more than friendship and comfort- at its most successful, networking achieves change.
Strong Networks go beyond defining the problem to creating the solution and being part of it. Effective networks are inclusive, strategic and have objectives which link gender issues with broader or mainstream issues, so that gender becomes everybody's business.
Engaging the leadership, the broader community and political leaders are all part of achieving change which is shared and embraced rather than accepted resentfully by male officers and the broader community. Too often over the past twenty years change has been introduced without community engagement and the rest have tagged along, resentfully catching up.
Increasing the visibility of women in the police force both in numbers and focus will foster much needed change in this male dominated profession. Often it is simple tactics, such as ensuring there are equal numbers of female "official spokespeople" as there are male, even if the ranks do not reflect this same equality, to project the impression of a more gender-inclusive police force. This works not just with the broader community, half of whom are female and potential clients of the police force, but it also works with would-be female recruits as well.
So yes, it is a long march ahead and we are only a little way along this particular journey. And yes, you all have families to feed and careers of your own to pursue, without the pain and effort of being a pioneer leader to add to your life-load. And whom am I, a humble Sex Discrimination Commissioner, who has never had to do any of this myself, to urge you to do it. But nobody said leadership was easy, and leadership is what this is all about.
If there is any consolation, it is for you to remember that the times have never been better, and women never better prepared, to take hold of the future. Leadership will bring its rewards, and the gratitude of your sisters.
Thank you.
1.
Australian Institute of Criminology The Composition of Australia's
Police Services as at June 2001, http://www.aic.gov.au/policing/stats/pol2001.html.
2. Australian Institute of Criminology The Composition
of Australia's Police Services as at June 2001, http://www.aic.gov.au/policing/stats/pol95.html.
3. Wendy Austin "The socialisation of women police:
Male officer hostility to female police officers" paper presented
at the Australian Institute of Criminology Conference First Australasian
Women Police Conference Sydney 29-31 July, 3.
4. See Carmel Niland "The impact of police culture
on women and their performance in policing" paper presented at the
Australian Institute of Criminology Conference First Australasian Women
Police Conference Sydney 29-31 July, 8-9.
5. Wendy Austin "The socialisation of women police:
Male officer hostility to female police officers" paper presented
at the Australian Institute of Criminology Conference First Australasian
Women Police Conference Sydney 29-31 July, 5.
6. Australian Institute of Criminology The Composition
of Australia's Police Services as at June 2001, http://www.aic.gov.au/policing/stats/pol2001.html.
7. Police custody surveys as cited in Chris Cuneen Conflicting
Politics and Crime Allen and Unwin Sydney 2001,172.
