In the majority of workplaces across the globe, diversity seems to be a problem, evident in the large disproportion of minorities in positions of power or even in minor company roles. Specifically, the police force is an organization that struggles with diversity. These two charts show that, while there has been a slight increase over the decades, much can be done to improve.
Three women Debra Langan (Criminology Professor), Carrie Sanders (Criminology Professor), and Tricia Agocs (a citizen who worked in police services for 10 years) wanted to delve into the treatment of women in the Canadian police force to bring awareness towards the issues female police officers often face, especially during pregnancy. The police force is already a predominantly male profession, so women are, like Kaplan and Donovan stated, an outsider group within the larger organization. To determine real life examples, Langan et al created a study which, while it only featured 16 Caucasian females from across Ontario, Canada, the authors acknowledged this small size throughout the article. However small the sample size, the majority of the women reported a poor work environment, in addition to stating that the culture and management is inadequate and in much need of improvement. This is evident in the study conducted where “one in five [officers] … think about leaving their current police force from once a week to several times a week”. Women often push themselves extremely hard, believing that they need to prove themselves more to show that they deserve to be there. When considering becoming pregnant, one woman stated that it was very important to make sure that you have proved yourself because if you get pregnant too early, then you would be looked down upon by colleagues. It was a fear for many policewomen that, by announcing their pregnancy, it meant judgment from everyone, and when a woman was on maternity leave, their coworkers often had to take over the mother’s work, which further caused poor feelings. When returning to work, the policewoman now needs to reprove herself to try and remove herself from the new demoted position because after time off she might not be an adequate police officer anymore. So instead of just proving herself once, earning her way onto the force, she now must do it again, even though all her coworkers already know what she is capable of. Langan et al want the police departments across Canada to address these issues and expectations for women due to their unfair treatment. There needs to be change and therefore the authors chose to broach this diversity topic.
Many of the articles we have previously explored mentioned the various issues regarding diversity in the workplace. I wanted to expand on the discrimination that we saw females face in the Kaplan and Donovan article when the executive looked down on the other workers, so I chose a specific career that I knew often contained a lot of bigotry. Hearing the examples these 16 women gave to show how they are treated was very eye opening and it became clear how brave they are for staying especially since many considered quitting. This study was conducted in Canada about five years ago. It is unfortunate that, despite all this evidence showing the problems and where the department can be improved, nothing significant changed. Problems with diversity within the police force still prevail everywhere. Three years after the study, this particular TEDtalk, linked below, gives additional evidence on how females face discrimination in the police, only this time, it is focused on the United States.
In this TEDtalk, a policewoman who has been in the force for 25 years reveals that a very high percentage of women fail out of the academy due to unfair regiment that favor males over females and have very little to do with what officers will face during their actual career. This means that out of all American police officers, only about 13% are women, which has statistically been very steady for around the past two decades. This number is incredibly low especially given the amount of data the TEDtalk gives that shows how valuable they are.
The reason I chose these pieces of media was to give evidence to our much-researched topic of the lack of diversity in workplaces. It is important to see these real world examples, how discrimination impacts daily life, and how little has been done to stop it. More awareness is necessary to fix this issue, which is why we need to keep spreading the media being researched in class.
Article citation:
Debra Langan, Carrie B. Sanders & Tricia Agocs (2017) Canadian Police Mothers and the Boys’ Club: Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, and Returning to Work, Women & Criminal Justice, 27:4, 235-249, DOI: 10.1080/08974454.2016.1256254