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Bonnie Reilly Schmidt, Ph.D.

~ History Provides Context

Bonnie Reilly Schmidt, Ph.D.

Category Archives: Women in the News

Gender Discrimination at the Met

08 Fri Apr 2016

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Women in Policing, Women in the News

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Katie Dennell, Police Uniforms, The Met, Women in Policing

When I speak to audiences about my book Silenced: The Untold Story of the Fight for Equality in the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), I am invariably asked the same question: “What do I tell young women who want to join the RCMP?”

I often say that they should be aware of the history of the RCMP, their human rights, and the gendered attitudes that are systemic in the culture of the police force.

Of course, not everyone is convinced that discrimination still exists in policing. I was reminded of this recently when I read an online article published by Womanthology. Written about nineteen-year-old Katie Dennell, a new constable working for London’s Metropolitan Police Service (also known as the Met), it is a reminder of the energy and exuberance that young people bring to police work.[1]

What stopped me in my tracks, however, was a quote from Dennell who stated, “I would encourage all girls and women to apply for the police if they would like to pursue a career as a police officer. It really is exactly what I expected when I signed up and there is no gender discrimination.”

WPC Katie Dennell Source: Womanthology

WPC Katie Dennell
Source: Womanthology

Before we dismiss Katie’s enthusiasm as naïve, we should talk about what she has overlooked to arrive at the conclusion that her employer has solved the problem of gender discrimination.

Because I am not privy to the inner workings of London’s police service, I’ll confine my comments to two informal observations found in the article that convince me that gender discrimination is alive and well at the Met.

To begin with, Katie is referred to as “WPC Katie Dennell.” WPC stands for Woman Police Constable. Female police officers at the Met have a “W” in front of their rank. It is a distinguishing marker that is discriminatory since male officers do not have a similar designation, such as “MPC,” that identifies their gender and rank.

Secondly, a photo of Katie in her uniform suggests that there is a definite difference between male and female officers. Differences between uniforms are always tied to more conventional ideas about masculinity and civic authority and they have, historically, been one way of appeasing tensions regarding the integration of women into the rank-and-file. This is particularly true if the uniform is viewed as a national symbol.

For example, the men of the Met still wear the famous bobby helmet which has been an iconic symbol of British law enforcement since 1863. In contrast, the Met’s women wear a bowler-style of hat. Different headgear was also the experience of the women of the RCMP in 1974 who were not issued with the famous Stetson hat worn by the men. Instead, they were issued with a pillbox hat to give them a feminine appearance.

Source: Metropolitan Police Service

Source: Metropolitan Police Service

Today at the Met, women wear a checkered cravat instead of a necktie. As a social marker, a necktie can convey a whole set of socially constructed ideas about masculinity and femininity. A necktie symbolizes professionalism and neatness and projects a certain public persona about the wearer.[2]

Although the original female RCMP service uniform included a necktie, its triangular shape suggested, in much the same way that the Met’s checkered cravat does, that a female Mountie was still feminine despite working in a male-dominated occupation. Feminized versions of ties convey the idea that female police officers possess a different set of attributes and authority than their male counterparts.[3]

Uniforms and lettered designations can tell us a lot about discriminatory attitudes within police culture, despite official policies to the contrary. Difference is not the same as equality. In fact, it suggests subordination and sets up masculinity as the standard within the profession.

My hope is that Katie Dennell will have a long and successful career ahead of her. I also hope that the discrimination she undoubtedly will encounter will not dampen her enthusiasm for the work or her desire to help people in the communities she will serve. Good luck and stay safe, Katie.

 

[1] http://www.womanthology.co.uk/to-help-protect-and-serve-across-the-generations-wpc-katie-dennell-meets-her-greatest-female-role-model-from-the-metropolitan-police-service/.

[2] For more on the meaning of uniforms see Jennifer Craik, “The Cultural Politics of the Uniform,” 129.

[3] It was not until 1990 that the RCMP began to issue a unisex uniform to all of its members.

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A Good Day for Canadian Women

04 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Society, Women in History, Women in the News

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Cabinet Ministers, Ellen Fairclough, Judy LaMarsh, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Women and Merit, Women in Cabinet

As I watched fifteen female members of parliament being sworn in today as part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, I was thinking of two of their predecessors who also made political history. Ellen Fairclough (1905-2004) and Judy LaMarsh (1924-1980) were the first women to serve as federal cabinet ministers in Canada.

Ellen Fairclough

Ellen Fairclough

Fairclough was elected as a member of parliament for the riding of Hamilton West in 1950. She was the first Canadian woman to hold a cabinet post when Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker appointed her as Secretary of State in 1957. The next year she held the portfolio of Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Under her direction, immigration legislation was reformed making Canada’s laws more progressive and less discriminatory against immigrants and refugees.

Judy LaMarsh, Member of Parliament for Niagara Falls, was the second woman in Canadian history to be appointed to a cabinet position. In 1963, Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson assigned her the portfolio of Minister of National Health and Welfare. LaMarsh was responsible for some of Canada’s most innovative social legislation during her tenure in office. She implemented the Canada Pension Plan, a national health care system, the Broadcasting Act, oversaw the country’s Centennial Year celebrations, and served as secretary of state from 1965-1968.

Judy LaMarsh

Judy LaMarsh

Both women were the only female members of their respective cabinets during their time in office. In contrast, the women who were sworn in today will be joined by fourteen female colleagues, an occurrence that both Fairclough and LaMarsh could only dream of.

Our new prime minister’s promise to create a cabinet that is more representative of the Canadian population has been criticized by many. Of course, questions of merit arise any time people start discussing women in powerful positions. Old arguments about affirmative action usually surface and the abilities of women who are given political power on an equal basis with men are often called into question.

(For more on the issue of merit see http://www.chatelaine.com/living/politics/justin-trudeaus-new-cabinet-is-a-dream-team-and-heres-why/.)

But the women who were sworn in today challenge assumptions of tokenism. They have backgrounds in international trade, United Nations peacekeeping, public relations, communications, law, medicine, worker’s compensation, Paralympic sport, medical geography, indigenous rights, political organization, and environmental protection, to name just a few. One, Kirsty Duncan, jointly holds a Nobel Prize for her participation on an intergovernmental panel on climate change.

Patricia Hajdu, Minister of the Status of Women (Source: @PattyHajdu)

Patricia Hajdu, Minister of the Status of Women

Yes, many of the rookie cabinet ministers will make mistakes and stumble as they learn their jobs and wrestle with some fairly daunting issues. But they’ll do so because they’re human, not because they’re women. “Government by cabinet is back,” according to Trudeau, and for the first time in Canadian history women will equally share in the burden of running the country.

Fifty-eight years ago, Judy LaMarsh recalled having to curtsey to the Governor General before taking her oath of office in 1963. Today the curtsies were dispensed with as the new ministers assumed their rightful place in leading our nation. It’s an exciting day for Canadian women, one that is long overdue.

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What the RCMP Can Learn From the Mistakes of the Military

14 Thu May 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Women in the News, Women in the RCMP

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Canadian Armed Forces, Marie Deschamps, Police Culture, RCMP, Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment

The RCMP has a lot to learn from the experience of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Canada’s military recently underwent an external review of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct practices in the organization by former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps. In her report, Deschamps made ten recommendations for changes to the CAF where she found the existence of a “sexualized culture” that is “hostile to women.” (Deschamps’s report can be accessed at http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-harassment-report-10-recommendations-1.3055935.)

My research into the history of women in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), a paramilitary police force, has also shown that sexual misconduct and the sexual harassment of female police officers are endemic. In fact, many of Deschamps’s findings and recommendations are applicable to the RCMP, who would be well served to pay attention not only to her research, but to the response of government and the public over revelations that the CAF’s leadership planned to ignore some of the report’s key recommendations well before it was even released. See http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-s-response-to-sexual-misconduct-report-curtailed-by-general-s-orders-1.3071386.

Here are six ways the RCMP can change the sexualized culture of the police force:

  1. Acknowledge that sexual misconduct and harassment is a problem within the RCMP.
  2. Reinforce to all members that sexual assault and sexual harassment is illegal and clearly defined under sections 264, 265, 266, and 273 of the Criminal Code of Canada as well as under civil law – federal, provincial, and territorial legislation as well as under provincial human rights codes and labour legislation.
  3. Realize that women (and men) in the RCMP are no longer willing to be silent about sexual assault and harassment.
  4. Understand that the problem is based on beliefs and assumptions about gender. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are not about sexual intercourse but about power and control over individuals, groups, institutions, and the culture of an organization.
  5. Change the culture of the RCMP. Begin with denying employment to those applicants who view sexual misconduct as acceptable behaviour. Reinforce zero tolerance throughout the training period at the academy and openly discuss the problem sexual misconduct poses. Insist on further training on the subject before constables are promoted to the non-commissioned ranks, and again before they receive a commission. Hold those who are guilty of the practice to account.
  6. Work to regain the trust of the Canadian public. Canadians want to trust their national police force but they also want their rights as citizens living in a democratic society to be respected. The RCMP has long understood that trust is essential to ensuring the public’s compliance when enforcing the law. But trust is also a necessity if police officers want to be treated with respect in return.

It is no longer possible to ignore sexual misconduct or accept it as a normative part of military or police culture. Attempts to sweep the issue under the carpet will only harm the reputation of the RCMP and the CAF in the long run, not to mention the lives of those who experience sexual harassment and sexual assault at the hands of their peers and supervisors. Canadians are no longer willing to wait for change.

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Hiding Carrie Fisher in Vancouver

10 Fri Apr 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Women in the News

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Carrie Fisher, Vancouver Fan Expo, Women and Aging

Last weekend Vancouver, BC hosted a Fan Expo that included as its main headliners Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame and William Shatner from the Star Trek television series. Princess Leia, as Fisher is known to many of her fans, was at the Expo to sign autographs, be photographed with fans, and participate in a Q & A session.

A friend who attended the event remarked that Fisher was hidden behind a black curtain signing autographs, so he missed a chance at seeing her in person. When asked why she was behind a curtain, he commented that the rumour around the Expo was that she “hadn’t aged well.” His comment passed as a reasonable explanation to those who were present and no one challenged this perception.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Carrie Fisher at the Vancouver Fan Expo Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Now, Fisher, who is fifty-eight years old, was not exactly hiding. She was in fact signing autographs as well as having her photograph taken with fans that had paid for the privilege, which explains the curtain. Her appearance at a question and answer session was well-documented and photographed by the media such as the UK’s Daily Mail, who commented that Fisher appeared “happy and healthy.” These are hardly the actions of a woman who wanted to remain hidden.

(See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3027032/Carrie-Fisher-looks-happy-healthy-headlines-Fan-Expo-Vancouver-William-Shatner.html)

The idea that Fisher was being concealed by organizers of the Expo, or had asked to be hidden behind a curtain because she was aging, was the most disturbing aspect of my friend’s explanation. The notion that women are required to “age well” so permeates our society that it is now considered normal thinking and a reasonable expectation that requires no further probing.

Of course, little was said by my friend about the male celebrities at the Expo who were also concealed by the curtain. And there was no mention of Fisher’s accomplishments as a bestselling author and screenwriter, not to mention her acting achievements. Unfortunately, assumptions about women and aging demonstrates that a gendered double standard continues to thrive in western thinking.

The pressure being placed on women to remain forever young continues to be a sad reality. Despite the work of social reformers and feminists during the past fifty years, people of all ages continue to buy into the idea that women must not look their age, especially if they are in the public spotlight. Apparently, women who actually look their age do not deserve our respect or our attention.

It is long past the time to change this socially constructed and unobtainable ideal. And Carrie Fisher, you look fantastic.

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Throwing Like a Girl

25 Mon Aug 2014

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Women in the News

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gender and physiology, Mo'ne Davis, Sports Illustrated, Throw Like a Girl

The photo of Little League pitcher Mo’ne Davis on the cover of Sports Illustrated last week has caused quite a stir. The thirteen-year-old made history as the first ever little leaguer of any gender or race to appear on the magazine’s cover. Davis, who can pitch a seventy mph fastball, is helping to change how we view women who are professional athletes.

More than one journalist has noticed the difference between Davis’s photograph and the sexual representations of women who usually grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. But buried in all of the debates about women and sport lie biological arguments about women as “the weaker sex.” It is an idea  rooted in the 18th and 19th centuries when middle- and upper-class girls and women were taught to refrain from physical activity, thought to be a hindrance to reproduction. During an age when land, money, and titles were handed down though male heirs, primogeniture was an important part of the maintenance of the power and values of the upper classes. Motherhood was viewed as a woman’s highest calling and any activity that might disrupt her “natural” reproductive function was viewed as dangerous and foolhardy.

This belief carried over into the twentieth century. The idea of women as the weaker sex was reinforced in 1966 by Erwin Strauss, a respected neurologist whose research helped to pioneer anthropological medicine and psychiatry. Strauss noticed that the posture of young boys and girls differed when they threw a ball. He concluded that the weaker muscle power of girls accounted for this difference. But he also explained it in gendered terms, as being the result of their “feminine attitude” toward the world and the space around them. As political scientist Iris Young noted in her study of Strauss and his work, girls were thought to throw differently from boys simply because they were feminine. 

In this century, the phrase “throwing like a girl” continues to be used as an insult. But it has also morphed into an urban myth of sorts, at least according to the hosts of the Discovery Channel’s popular television show, Mythbusters (discover.com/tv-shows/mythbusters). In a segment titled “Throws Like a Girl,” hosts Adam and Jamie tackle the “cultural generality” that men throw better than women. Their experiment used eight men, women, boys, and girls, who were requested to throw a fastball at a target first with their right arm and then with their left. The result was that there was no measurable difference between the way men and women threw the ball when using their left arm, proving that the ability to throw a fastball comes down to practice and training, not physiology.

But of course, Mo’ne Davis knows that. The trouble is that many watching her career don’t, which is why she has garnered so much attention for her talent and surprise at her achievements. It is a very good thing that she doesn’t throw like a girl.

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