Today, oh wondrous day, they did it again, this time probably torpedoeing the Police's latest positive PR attempt in the process:
Although maybe the Police have self-sabotaged a wee bit, seeing as how, according to the Herald: From today, pictures of attractive young officers holding books with covers featuring themselves in different policing scenes and the slogan "Find Yourself in Better Work Stories", will adorn bus shelters and websites.I wonder at what stage of the writing process that "attractive" entered the sentence...
Click through for the article itself if you so desire. It has some interesting bits about women in the police force, in particular the woeful stats (17% of police are female).
5 comments:
Personally I view the low levels of women in the police force as rather similar to the low levels of women in the armed forces - I'm not sure a mass infusion of women into the institution would really make anybody's lives better.
When i went in to complain about my ex boyfriend stalking and harassing me there happened to be a policewoman at the counter. It was nice when i was feeling vulnerable to that kind of attack to be talking to a woman.
Yeah, its not the only important thing and there are other institutional problems with the police force. But the police have to deal with some problems that disproportionately affect women, and its nice to be able to have some women involved in that scenario.
Hugh: The Police force is slightly different to the military - the Police are interacting with their community on a daily basis, and it makes sense to have more woman on their force when half the population is women.
A small What If: I wonder what the reporting rate of Rape would be like if there were more women, especially in that division?
Another: Like Sophia B said, how more comfortable would a woman feel reporting domestic violence if she could request a female officer?
Another: How many teenage girls getting in fights/trouble would respond better to a female officer (if, for example, part of their problem is overbearing patriachy)?
Are feminists doing anything to encourage women to join the Police in order to improve the 17%?
Hi, James Whitaker from NZ Police here. It was great that our recent campaign got a mention in the Herald. The reporter obviously thought the officers were/are attractive and chose to share her opinion with readers. I totally agree with the comments people have posted on your site and they are some of the key reasons why we are keen to recruit more women.
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