And now for something completely different

[ET109]

The irony I see in this - and perhaps it's just me, I'll admit to being a bit sick and twisted - is that if a bloke was doing this then we'd probably see colleagues excusing it as "oh it's just him" and "boys will be boys". But yes, the abuse of authority is definitely not on.

Not at all here. I mean, some people might have that feeling, but there is no way a supervisor would do any of that and not get canned ASAP. In fact, I had the exact opposite reaction to the story- I figured that she probably only got away with it because she's a woman and you get the responses of "what's the problem here?"

But I don't know how it's handled other places. I just know of internals against guys who did things nowhere NEAR this stuff.

[canuckofapeach]

The irony I see in this - and perhaps it's just me, I'll admit to being a bit sick and twisted - is that if a bloke was doing this then we'd probably see colleagues excusing it as "oh it's just him" and "boys will be boys". But yes, the abuse of authority is definitely not on.

Really? I hope I am not missing your point. If this is the sitrep then Australia is way behind the times and a good majority of the men need sensitivity training. Can this be an age-specific (generational) sentiment and, if so, do you think that this blatant sexism is the norm for many of the Australian male cops today? If the immediate rationalisation for a male supervisor sexually harassing one of the rank-and- file is a flippant 'boys will be boys' then what kind of a message are you sending to the troops?

I know that many of VicPol's male coppers derided Christine Nixon while she was Chief, using her sexuality and gender as targets for incompetence when she wanted to clean up some shaky cops in certain divisions and squads. She was overweight and middle-aged. She was called a dyke, too ... all this because she had a job to do. Imagine if she shook her knockers at men. Not the same huh, as she isn't immediately thought of as a piece of tail. Ah, but if there is an attractive female Chief you are amused by her managerial abuse?

The myth of 'fair go' is just that here -- a myth. Yes, yes, I know, the VicPol culture is 'special.'

Do you think it's acceptable and funny for a woman to slap a man in the face because he might have 'deserved' it but it is still deemed unacceptable for a male to deliver the slap?

[Kimble]

[marinepilot]

I'd hit it. Twice.

More to the point, it would probably hit YOU!! Twice!!

[oscarmitre]

Really? I hope I am not missing your point. If this is the sitrep then Australia is way behind the times and a good majority of the men need sensitivity training. Can this be an age-specific (generational) sentiment and, if so, do you think that this blatant sexism is the norm for many of the Australian male cops today? If the immediate rationalisation for a male supervisor sexually harassing one of the rank-and- file is a flippant 'boys will be boys' then what kind of a message are you sending to the troops?

I know that many of VicPol's male coppers derided Christine Nixon while she was Chief, using her sexuality and gender as targets for incompetence when she wanted to clean up some shaky cops in certain divisions and squads. She was overweight and middle-aged. She was called a dyke, too ... all this because she had a job to do. Imagine if she shook her knockers at men. Not the same huh, as she isn't immediately thought of as a piece of tail. Ah, but if there is an attractive female Chief you are amused by her managerial abuse?

The myth of 'fair go' is just that here -- a myth. Yes, yes, I know, the VicPol culture is 'special.'

Do you think it's acceptable and funny for a woman to slap a man in the face because he might have 'deserved' it but it is still deemed unacceptable for a male to deliver the slap?

Peach, I don’t think anyone is missing the point. It seems to me to be a very good discussion about a complicated topic and differing views are great. Now I’m about to unleash a rambling statement onto the forums.

In my experience sexism is inherent in policing at least in my area. It is trans-generational. This could be because of sexism in the wider community but it could also be the fact that sexism is so deeply embedded in our policing culture that newbies either absorb it or pretend to absorb it in order to fit in. There has been some progress at an official, surface level but that’s as far as it goes. When I joined the job in 1968 female officers worked in plainclothes and carried out mainly welfare work. They wore high heels, carried handbags and wore fancy hats. Women went into general duties in 1973 (or thereabouts) but the Department decreed that they were only to work with men, they were on restricted duties, they wore court shoes, carried handbags (well the pistol had to go somewhere) and wore fancy hats. Progress? Not really. The sexism of the Department was blatant but since it had a veneer of paternalistic authority it wasn’t challenged, except by a few brave women officers who had no backup from the Association.

Sexual harassment was and is rife. Supervisors who were known to sexually harass female officers or treat them with contempt were never dealt with by the bosses. That could be because the female officers were too frightened to complain or because they knew (a) nothing would come of it and (b) they would end up being punished or be broken. There is still a lot of contempt for female officers among male officers in my little corner of the world; sometimes unspoken, sometimes said quietly, rarely but spectacularly voiced aloud. Some women are accepted and lauded but make no mistake, they are the exception in terms of approval, the very fact that I have to write that is testament to the fact that a female officer is not accepted until she has proven her competence. I never faced that, people just assumed when I graduated from the Academy that I could do the job.

Nowadays action will be taken against a male supervisor who is found to have behaved badly towards a female officer, but it takes a female with a lot of guts or who is at her wits end to pursue it to a conclusion. She is like the rape victim who reports the rape and whose credibility is then attacked by the defence. Many female officers “lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

The Christine Nixon experience illustrates the situation well. You know about it but I’ll explain it for the gentle reader who is not familiar with the events that transpired when Victoria Police appointed its first female Chief Commissioner. Nixon had several strikes against her when she was appointed. Firstly she was from outside Victoria, in a force that is as traditionalist and closed as Victoria this was sufficient to cause an outbreak of apoplexy in the ranks. Being a female was probably nearly as bad as not being a Victorian, it was certainly something else that could be held against her. I suppose if Christine had been svelte and physically attractive (she was a bit of a babe when she was younger but then I suppose we all were) maybe it would have alleviated the offence felt by many Vicpol members, but she has had a weight problem in her later years and because she didn’t look like Elle McPherson this counted against her. Unattractive, balding, fat, middle-aged male Chief Commissioners apparently get a pass in the looks department. But the real problem to befall her was that she attempted to modernise an antiquated police force. That was enough to ignite opposition immediately.

In policing, as you know, a weapon of the one-size-fits-all type is using a perceived lack of operational credibility against someone. If they haven’t done it hard, “where the rubber meets the road” or “haven’t seen an angry man for years” or are Gurkhas (so-called because they haven’t take a prisoner for years), they have no credibility in the eyes of the average copper. Christine had not been on the road for some years. She had made her career in New South Wales mainly in HR, I suppose it doesn’t matter that she was good at it. She scored a Fulbright Scholarship, and they don’t give them out with your breakfast cornflakes. Her chosen career path counted against her as well.

Her determination to modernise upset not only the troops, it annoyed some very senior officers who were doing pretty well out of the predominant culture and it annoyed the Police Association of Victoria mightily. Well it annoyed some of them, the female President actually supported Nixon’s aims and strategies and had to leave office - Four Corners - 12/02/2007: Interview with Snr Sgt Janet Mitchell - because of the culture of the organisation.

Now Victoria has what it wants – a male Chief Commissioner and already they’re moaning because he wants to get rid of some of Nixon’s changes and get things back to the way they used to be where the troops get told how to have a haircut, how a moustache can look and to get rid of beards (that’s just a start, wait until he really hits his straps and rides off at a gallop to the 19th Century).

But back to the point at hand. Sexual harassment in the workplace is not acceptable (I know it’s not acceptable anywhere but I have to keep some boundaries for the discussion) and it doesn’t matter who’s doing it and who’s on the receiving end. But damn me if I can’t see something absolutely funny in a female Chief flashing her knockers. Sorry, I am just an unreconstructed geezer, I admit that. Yes I am a hypocrite in holding this opinion. I need help.

There is, however, nothing funny about the allegations that she used her authority to intimidate and threaten anyone – in my little corner of the world that’s a criminal offence, not just a disciplinary matter and it’s not at all humorous.

But I am still rolling over the floor at the irony of it all. I know coppers who will swear on a stack of bibles that there is no such thing as sexual harassment, just overly sensitive females or situations where a male copper has put the word on a lesbian man-hater who has gone into high dudgeon. I’m not suggesting that anyone on RP is holding to that position, However I’m telling you I KNOW coppers who do. In the light of that knowledge I’ve read the reports of the Chief’s alleged behaviour and imagined the response of the coppers I’m thinking about, the denialists. Some would be doing the nudge-nudge, wink-wink thing but I bet some would be purple-faced over the woman’s alleged behaviour – not the threats but the flashing of female bits.

As for The Slap. It's worse when a man slaps a woman. That's my position and I'm sticking to it.

[retdetsgt]

You guys had Christine Nixon, we had Penny Harrington, but it was a different situation. It was more or less the same here with women in 1970, they all worked Women's Protective Division, had their own supervisors and one woman captain. We were the first department in the USA to hire women as police officers in 1905 for the Lewis and Clark Exposition. They were originated to take care of young girls who had runaway or illegally brought here. The continued on dealing only with cases involving juvenile girls.

When I started, they were the only ones required to have college degrees. Harrington was hired as one and almost immediately started suing the city because of inequality with male officers. And I'll testify that they were treated poorly and with contempt by most male cops. She rose in ranks here by lawsuits, 13, if I recall correctly and most had some solid basis. For the first few years we had women in uniform, they were treated like little sisters by their FTO's and protected. Consequently when they hit the streets on their own, they were worthless and usually scared to death. I had one as a partner for a while and she literally hid behind me on most calls. Nearly all the first hires either quit or found drone jobs off the street. It took several years before male cops started treated them with any respect at all. After that, they started pulling their weight, more or less. Some lived up to the lower expectations for a while. But it seriously took a long time before women weren't automatically dispatched with backup on most calls. That wasn't their fault, it was still that protective attitude.

Penny was very personable and liked by most male and female cops, mostly because once she came to the street, she tried hard to learn and listened to experienced cops. Then she became chief and it all went to hell. All the vendettas came out, she all but disbanded the drug and vice unit, made a huge juvenile division and it was obvious that she didn't have what it took to be chief. It came out later that her husband, a patrolman gave confidential info to a dealer about a case being worked against him. The mayor was scared to dump the first female chief so he set up a committee to investigate and they found she was not only incompetent, but she went to great lengths to protect her dumbsh!t husband. The liberals here still see it as a slam to feminism, but even most female cops were relieved to see her gone. But everyone I know went way out of their way to make sure that any criticism was NOT gender based. Fortunately, by that time we had some pretty good commanders that were female so that dimmed some of the whining about discrimination against her.

That being said, she set up the atmosphere of litigation for any kind of discrimination. And to this day, if you are a minority or a woman, the rules and standards are a little different. But this is also a very liberal city too.

Don't take that as me badmouthing the female officers, we have some really good ones and they are now expected to and do the same job as males. There are no doubt more lousy male cops as there are female because of the numbers. But because of fear of litigation, they are given a little more slack.

But to be honest, I rarely saw a boys will be boys attitude here. There were a couple of accusations of males of being sexually aggressive, but that's all. And considering everything, that says a lot. If anything it was a paternal attitude. My reasoning was always that the women here make the same pay I do, they better be able to do the same work. That hasn't always gone over well either, I might add.

[oscarmitre]

Equal pay for equal work - shouldn't be a problem except for those who think the job is a sheltered workshop.

Our Association fought for a pay rise in 1918 in terrible circumstances (I won't bore everyone with the details but the campaign was earth-shattering for its time) and won a really tough battle with government. Government was ready to settle at the end of it but they didn't want our few women officers to get equal pay. To their endless credit back then in 1918 our Association Committee (all men) held out until the government agreed to pay women equally. Those blokes were and are legends.

Wakefield Press :: History :: The First Police Union

[retdetsgt]

Equal pay for equal work - shouldn't be a problem except for those who think the job is a sheltered workshop.

Unfortunately, ours is that for some people. Not as bad as it used to be, but it's still a problem.

[greg72982]

More to the point, it would probably hit YOU!! Twice!!

Then try to charge him with rape by the sounds of things...

[retdetsgt]

Then try to charge him with rape by the sounds of things...

Here at least, a male wouldn't have gotten away with it that long.

[PathosLogos]

I sexually harass Greg most days. I'm not his boss, but I am his girlfriend--that's essentially the same thing, right?


On a serious note, I should hope this case is being handled the same way it would be if the chief was a male. What a corrupt, twisted individual, charging people with crimes because they "crossed her."

[MikeG]

I'll turn it on it's head a little bit. I couldn't keep track of all the names and complaints and what their continued relation to the department is but if the main source of sexual harassment is a fired employee, I'd like more information. If this were a male police chief and a fired female subordinate alleged SH after being fired and gave numerous anecdotal stories, I'd want to know more before saying the firing was inappropriate and the chief should be canned.

I will say, though, that role reversal makes this story way more titillating. Very titillating.

[retdetsgt]

We lost a male chief who had being having an affair with a female clerk when he commanded a precinct. She wanted something after he became chief and apparently didn't get it and blew the whistle on a consentual affair. He apparently used city email service to send her romantic letters, etc.

It was really messy because he's black and some saw it as a racial thing against him. It was really just lousy judgement on his part to mess with a crazy white woman. He took an early retirement.

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portl...category=22101

[MikeG]

Equal pay for equal work - shouldn't be a problem except for those who think the job is a sheltered workshop.

Our Association fought for a pay rise in 1918 in terrible circumstances (I won't bore everyone with the details but the campaign was earth-shattering for its time) and won a really tough battle with government. Government was ready to settle at the end of it but they didn't want our few women officers to get equal pay. To their endless credit back then in 1918 our Association Committee (all men) held out until the government agreed to pay women equally. Those blokes were and are legends.

Wakefield Press :: History :: The First Police Union

You left out the part where those were the only women in the country/prison and if they left, the kangaroos were gonna start looking mighty scared.

[Kimble]

T

I sexually harass Greg most days. I'm not his boss, but I am his girlfriend--that's essentially the same thing, right?

This website has become such a soap opera!