This is the official blog of ex-Sgt Ellie Bloggs. I was a real live police constable then sergeant for twelve years, on the real live front line of England. I'm now a real live non-police person. All the facts I recount are true, and are not secrets. If they don't want me blogging about it, they shouldn't do it. PS If you don't pay tax, you don't (or didn't) pay my salary.


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Saturday, August 12, 2006

21st century newsflash - Women achieve Equality

As I seem to be the only female police blogger out here at the moment (please let me know if I am wrong), I thought I should really talk about life as a WOMAN POLICE OFFICER.

To begin, I did some RESEARCH. You can see some of it here, here, here and here (forces chosen from a spread of the country and not very enlightening, but that is all they offer).

I am one of two female officers on my shift of ten (when full strength). It's great being a woman in the police nowadays. In case you were unaware, 21st century women are EQUAL to men. It's taken us a few millennia to catch up, but at last we've done it and the view from up top is pretty fab. I am now permitted to be crewed with another female, which makes for lots of girly chatting. I am also permitted to be single-crewed, which gives me lots of chances to fight men and show how EQUAL I am. For the first time, not all female police officers are lesbians, so that makes for a much happier atmosphere of flirting and inter-colleague affairs, rather than all the nasty insults about "dykes", which are now just reserved for those women officers with short hair.

As women have found it so hard and taken so long to become EQUAL, there is also lots of help out there for the woman police officer. This site is one such example, as is the British Association of Women Police. Another example is the police fitness test. In 2004 it was lowered from level 8.1 on the "bleep test", to level 5.4, and the "grip test" has now been abolished completely. This was because of campaigns such as the one reported here. Basically, people realised that women simply cannot run faster than a slow jog it's NOT POSSIBLE. They also realised that male and female police officers are equally unlikely to even get out of their station or car on the average day, and the few days per year where a chase occurs it's better to let the men win anyway as they really do love catching baddies more than us.

Another way in which women are helped to stay equal is by flexible working hours. The government long since identified that most women just can't wait to have a darling little baby and many leave the force when they start a family. They are now encouraged to stay through the use of part-time hours, flexi-time, variable hours etc. Men fortunately do not have any desire to spend time with their children, and are happy to keep working night shifts and antisocial 16 hour duties throughout their family life.

It's been a long struggle for us women to attain EQUALITY and we need to be well-protected. Most of my colleagues understand this and I will find myself shunted out of the way whilst running up the stairs to a flat where a man with a machete is barricaded, or the door-enforcer wrenched from my hands before I can strain my delicate back trying to force entry somewhere. Like many women, I do have a tendency to try and do things for myself, and I am grateful for the help I get from my employer in restraining this urge. A colleague of mine recently fell pregnant and she was quite rightly put in an office for 9 months creating spreadsheets for another department, as she just did not know what was good for her and the fool wanted to keep on doing her job and working towards promotion.

If any of my readers (male or female) have some examples of female equality in the police, please let me know.

(W)PC Bloggs

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Copyright of PC Bloggs.

23 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am all for equality and diversity. I am not entirely happy with the dropping of fitness standards though. The threat from criminals or the type of service we offer doesn't subside or change due to the gender of the officer and so why should the test be lowered? As long as the service we supply is not effected by the drop in fitness then I am happy. However... I have seen an increasing number of fat nackers in uniforms that simply is a disgrace... Watching them (attempt to) run down the high street is embarrassing.

14 August, 2006 13:08

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Having just found your blog, two things have struck me - your prolificacy, and the silence with which you have been greeted. Just so you know - I'm enjoying reading it, thanks for making the effort.

14 August, 2006 13:29

 
Blogger Disgruntled said...

Fantasic post and keep it up!

Incidentally I have printed off the pictures of the ugly babies and given them to my missus so as to make her feel less broody. Thank you!

14 August, 2006 15:37

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Perhaps I'm one of the odd ones out, but our section is heavily staffed with women. In fact, my Sarge has stated he wants to be the first to have an all female section in the force - I think this is moreso to do with the fact that he fancies himself as Bosley from Charlies Angels rather than any effort to promote the careers of the women in question.

We currently have 12 on the section, 5 blokes and 7 girls, but one bloke is off to another department and the replacement they are lining up is also a girl so it will be 4-8 - twice as many women as fellas!

14 August, 2006 16:52

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just found this blog, excellent post.. I totally agree with you on your thoughts on "Equality"

14 August, 2006 20:57

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just a few lines to say welcome. I picked up your blog via the great Constable Copperfield's blog, and had a reet good laugh reading it. Keep up the good work.
The Writer

15 August, 2006 09:07

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just in case you were worried that no-one's reading your blogs, I thought I'd let you know that I'm enjoying them (and I'm male!).

15 August, 2006 14:09

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Careful about describing yourself as being from Blandford. . .someone may think you're a Dorset officer!
"QC, Golf-Delta 182, pub brawl in Blandford, no offences, we're resuming!"

15 August, 2006 14:15

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Test

16 August, 2006 06:57

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As a fellow (eh?) female officer can I just say I have only just found your blog today via the wonderful PC Copperfield but am loving it!!
As for an example: my old shift was 3 females and 10 males (on full staffing-ie never. 3 females = no kids (2 x career women 1x lesbian) 10 males = 7 kids between them. Who do you think got to look after 2 screaming children for 6 hours after mum got lifted for shoplifting?? The OIC - no, a male officer with first hand child rearing experience - no, Me, ding, ding, ding jackpot!!! I could go on but you'd all think I was a raving feminist, I'm not - honest.
PC West Farce-ia

16 August, 2006 22:08

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

utter nonsense lowering the fittness test i am sick and fed up with pc,what gals me is that nonbody helped me,coming from a poor working class background, my parents could hardly read and write,but i was male and white well i got told hard cheese sucker get on with it,level 8.whatever is just breaking into a sweat level 5. is walking fast around the shops,i have seen my force,sorry service give female officers extra help more goes at fitness tests where if it was me i get told sorry not again,well you maybe right thats equality,if that is then it stinks to high heaven,and they talk of integrity being non negotiable,it would seem to be that some are more equal then others,ps 17 e/t l/t n/d and it seem as if the forces are going the same way god help us no wonder people are leaving this place

17 August, 2006 00:46

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i cant believe you type that comment, For the first time, not all female police officers are lesbians.did you think that all wpcs were who have over what 10 20 years in were,oh ps,at least the lesbians were as fit as me and i would work with them any day of the week i found what you said to be an insight

17 August, 2006 01:19

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

When the Loughbrough Uni tests into the Job-Related Fitness Do-dah were initially designed they included a "sit-&-reach" element. Unfortunately, they had to scrap this as too many MEN were weeded out at this stage. So it was quietly dropped. Nobody said a word, despite the fact that poor flexibility is a positive indicator for injury (and the sick days for police officers were running in the dozens as averaged). Then when not enough WOMEN could pass certain elements of the tests, and these were dropped, OUTRAGE! Is there a little bit of double standards operating here?

Personally I think the more successful test would include elements of flexibility (to prevent injury), aerobic fitness - for the foot chase that ISN'T over within 5 minutes (as all of my many chases so far have been!), perhaps some sprints as a measure of explosive power (for the more typical fast, over-soon foot-chase) put back in the hand-grip test - THIS ONE WAS IMPORTANT FOR EVERYONE! and retain the push-pull test as any amount of "roll-around" with a prisoner will inevitably require some element of pushing, pulling & gripping. Do not make the test pass-fail for every element but have scores and a threshold above which officers must score, or a simpler "must pass 3 out of 5" series of tests, so that the blokes can be crap at sit-&-reach and the gals can be rubbish at gripping but both sets can still get through.

I agree with Lennie Brisco about the fat knackers - they simply should not make uniforms in these larger sizes and there should be intervention measures available for the fatties who refuse to do anything about their obesity. They are (mostly) voluntarily making themselves unfit for duty (and they makes the uniformed services look like tw@s). Just my humble opinions though! PC Bitseach.

17 August, 2006 19:47

 
Blogger PC Bloggs said...

Nice to hear from a female officer at last.

Also nice to hear from some people who missed the sarcasm in some of my posts - always fun to mock them later when they realise.

17 August, 2006 21:43

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i posted some comments last night and i agree i did some aerobic fitness and it was hard(ps i did it),but the persons i am talking about couldnt even do that,dont get me wrong i am on about the hypocrisy if a man or women cant hack it,thats the end no free ride for both i have no problem with equality just with diversity.Now thats treating people differently(oh according to their needs)please tell me more about this new fitneess test

17 August, 2006 21:54

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great article! Thanks.

18 August, 2007 11:40

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice Blog!

18 August, 2007 17:26

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for interesting article.

18 August, 2007 17:27

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very interesting site. Blog is very good. I am happy that I think the same!

04 September, 2007 18:30

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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09 September, 2007 21:08

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I see first time your site guys. I like you :)

10 September, 2007 07:00

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Excellent website. Good work. Very useful. I will bookmark!

10 September, 2007 07:17

 
Blogger Liza said...

Hi- I'm writing a sociology paper on how being a police officer is a gendered job and found your blog very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

-Smith College student, Massachusetts

07 April, 2008 22:31

 

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