Women in policing in the United States

They face a particular set of challenges given the history of their entry into the profession, their low rates of participation, and the complex identities they negotiate in the work place.

[4] Many women became involved in social and moral reform movements in the late 1880s and early 1900s, which facilitated their visibility in the sphere of policing and public vigilance.

[4] These moral reform movements concerned themselves with eliminating gambling, prostitution, public obscenity, alcoholism and other behaviors they considered vices.

This counseling was geared mostly to vulnerable groups considered to be part of the purview of women's policing: prostitutes, runaways and wayward children among others.

In accordance with the times, a 1933 Policewoman's Guidebook describes many of the routine details of a policewoman's work, which included: patrolling and questioning individuals such as lost children, "children in street trades," truants and runaways, unemployed and homeless women and girls, "sexual delinquents", women suffering from mental disorders, combatting the distribution of "salacious literature" and dealing with petty thieves and shoplifters.

[11] These tasks reflect the orientation towards moral reform that characterized women's roles in the policing profession in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The first policewomen in the United States included Marie Owens, who joined the Chicago Police department in 1891; Lola Baldwin, who was sworn in by the city of Portland in 1908; Fanny Bixby, also sworn into office in 1908 by the city of Long Beach, California; and Alice Stebbins Wells who was initiated into the Los Angeles Police Department in 1910.

[22] In 1924, Bolan was promoted to operative (the title preceding special agent) where she performed duties, such as searching female prisoners and engage in occasional fieldwork.

[10] Women began to take more official, standardized, and widespread roles in law enforcement at all levels during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, at the confluence of the second-wave feminist movement, national equal opportunity legislation, and changing economic structures.

However, this progress often took place in police departments that still had policies that limited opportunities for women to take leadership roles and integrate fully into departmental work.

Firstly, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically Title VII, made it more difficult for men to discriminate against women in hiring and employment, a trend which extended to the police force.

This marked a shift in the federal government's orientation towards law enforcement, focusing on state and local police departments.

Also notable in the elimination of gender-based discrimination in police hiring was the 1971 Supreme Court decision Griggs v. Duke Power Company.

[24] This opened up the door for suits against police departments who had height, weight, and other physical requirements, which were framed as discriminatory against women.

[29] This stagnation reflects some of the discussion in qualitative studies about attracting and retaining female police officers and their perceptions of advancement opportunity in law enforcement.

[31][32] These sentiments are tied to the concept of the "brass ceiling", a turn of phrase meant to describe the limited opportunities for advancement for women in the police force and military.

[33] Extremely specialized roles, such as SWAT team members, are perhaps exempt from some of the assumptions around tokenism given their rigorous qualifications for entry, but also present unique challenges for integration into the unit culture.

A 2011 study argues that women in SWAT teams often need to "join the boys club" and may be relegated to specific roles, such as hostage negotiator, because of beliefs about female capacity for empathy and compassionate communication.

[39][40] A major reason for this is that recruiting processes favour candidates with high upper body strength and military experience.

In an article for USA Today, Kevin Johnson also argued that women in law enforcement face a glass ceiling, as the percentage who hold the rank of sergeant or higher is far lower.

[49] Characters in these shows and others in this time period often featured female detectives who had male bosses, rarely physically engaged or attacked adversaries, and were not involved in planning large missions, simply executing them.

These include the mother- a woman who appears to be kind and sympathetic, the pet- a "cheerleader" of sorts who is lacking intellectual prowess, the seductress-an object of sexual desire and source of office drama, and the iron maiden-a tough or direct woman who doesn't seem to fit the rest of the categories.

Neal King argues that women in these films are often represented as rookies, unsure of their professional selves or otherwise as undercover detective cops.

"[55] As one scholar puts it, "women who do breach the boundary to penetrate this masculine world can only ever be partially successful and will often have to subsume "male characteristics" to achieve even a limited social acceptability.

However, there are observed differences between how women approach their job - namely, their tendency to value autonomy less in the streets and to use physical force and violence less during confrontations.

[55] Those who claim that women bring a different perspective to policing draw on Carol Gilligan's theory of gendered moral development.

However, this view is complicated by evidence showing that women in policing tend to prefer work spaces with more uniform rules and regulations.

[60] Women are more likely to engage in what Schuck refers to as emotional labor, the "management of feelings in an effort to invoke a specific state of mind in another person.

However, Schuck cautions against reading too much into these findings, worrying that focusing on differences in how women and men view policing is a "slippery slope that will result in essentialist thinking and prejudicial and discriminatory practices," such as relegating women solely to policing jobs that require more emotional labor.

The intersections of race, gender, and sexual orientation create a particularly complicated space for women of color and/or non-heterosexual identities.