WOMEN IN UNIFORM

The so-called glass ceiling is back in the news because of a plan by the female head of the Victorian police force to attempt to shatter it.

The Chief Commissioner, Christine Nixon, has applied for an exemption from the Anti-discrimination laws to ensure that 50 per cent of police recruits are female.

Half of the recruits for the Police Academy would be female regardless of merit.

And, as my late mother-in-law, would say: Is this wise?

Should police officers be selected purely on gender? I am told it has reached such a delicate stage at the Police Academy that when they found women were failing at the physical challenge of climbing over a six-foot wall they made an executive decision.

One alternative was to lower the wall. Instead they just removed it.

That shouldn’t surprise people when the Police Commissioner herself would have a snowflake’s chance in hell of passing any physical test.

She was puffing just walking up a slight incline for the TV cameras when she was appointed from New South Wales.

Apparently there are less than 40 female Police officers with the rank of Senior Sergeant or higher in Victoria Police. So you can see the urgency for getting more women into the force.

But should it be on gender or on merit?

In the United States they used the quota system to force the acceptance of more black Americans and Hispanics into universities but women did not face the decades of abuse and discrimination minorities suffered over there.

Here Victoria Police claim they will not reduce standards or lower the entry requirement while forcing the female percentage up to 50%, Frankly, I find that hard to believe.

And that is not being sexist or a misogynist. If the Police force had a 70% female ratio that would not concern me. Just give the jobs to the people most qualified.

And in the area of public protection that means a certain degree of physical fitness, firearm accuracy and intelligence.

If they start lowering those standards just to get women into uniform then it is going to blow up in their faces and lower morale as well as standards.

Commissioner Nixon claims that a forced influx of females would improve the force because, in the fields of negotiation and communication “ women are acknowledged to have different approaches to men”.

Fine. Just let them earn their jobs and not hire them on a sexist basis.

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002