Women In Policing Essay

There are numerous strategies women in policing have come up with in order to deal with the harassment and discrimination. In one of the previous article called The Effect of Rank on Police Women Coping with Discrimination and Harassment, A number of strategies were named in which helped women deal with harassment and discrimination. One strategy many women used was “straight talk” in which women confronted the men about the harassment and told them to back off (Holdaway and Parler, 1998). It worked most of the time as it gave the woman the opportunity to stand up to themselves and decrease the amount of stress on their mental and physical health. Another strategy was working hard because if women worked hard and persevered no male officer
Although there is always a difference in the way they work, both men and women in policing still share similar capabilities of being able to do their job (Poteyeva and Sun, 2009). It has been stated that policing is becoming more community like and with it is an opportunity to increase women and minorities into policing. With more women in policing, it could be seen as impactful and not be viewed as a hindrance, as in the past many would view women in policing having too much emotion or do not have enough physical capability. As stated in the literature review, policing has begun to shift away from traditional policing to more community in which feminine traits are required leading to increase need of female officers (Miller, 1998). It has been noted that female officers’ occupational outlooks and operating styles both benefit the community and police departments Molinaro 1997: National Center for Women and Policing 2001 (As cited by Poteyeva and Sun, 2009). In fact, the proportion of female officers has grown steadily over the past 30 years and if it continues maybe the discrimination and sexual harassment will cease to exist (Arai and Dowler, 2008). In the past two decades more women and minorities have entered the police force, educational and training requirements have sustained change and community policing practices have been introduced (Poteyeva and Sun, 2009). There is no