Celebrating Female Trailblazers in Law Enforcement History and Their Impact Today

Unlock the untold stories of female pioneers in public safety with me, Harriet West-Moore. We journey through history, uncovering the tales of women like Marie Owens and Alice Stebbins Wells who defied the norms to don badges in law enforcement. From the societal shifts of World War II to the civil rights movement, we examine the hurdles they leaped over, and the ceilings they shattered. Celebrate the progress from the 1980s to the 2000s, while acknowledging the battles still to be won in the quest for true equality within the ranks of those who serve and protect.

Embark on an exploration of why women are indispensable to the heart of law enforcement, providing a compassionate approach in the toughest of circumstances, from domestic crises to the sensitive handling of sexual assault cases. Their innate ability to empathize, communicate, and build trust not only revolutionizes community safety but also humanizes the badge. Stay tuned as well for an exhilarating shift in our podcast’s format: real-life case stories will soon be woven into our episodes, offering a vivid documentary-style experience that promises to connect more deeply with you and honor the strength and valor of these remarkable women in public safety.

Email: publicsafetybywomen@gmail.com
Website: https://womeninpublicsafety.com
Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/@womeninpublicsafety

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello everyone, this is Harriet Westmore with the Women in Public Safety Podcast. I am your host and producer and I wanted to say happy Saturday. This is episode number nine, but before I get into today's interesting topic, I want you to hit that like and subscribe button. If you are watching by YouTube, if you're listening to it by Spotify, iheart, please subscribe and share this episode or the podcast itself to you. Anyone that you know that could, who works in public safety and who are female. So, with that being said, let me get into it. Today's episode is episode number nine, which is I thought it was an interesting topic I wanted to discuss today, and it's called you know the history of women in public safety professions, how we have evolved and what needs still needs to be done and, if there's, you know what opportunities we have for growth. So I'm going to be reading some topics off of my notes. So if you see me looking down for those who are watching me by YouTube, I apologize that I'm reading some of some of the notes that I have written when I was doing the research for this podcast particular episode. So I found it interesting that women working in public safety.

Speaker 1: 1:26

It goes all the way back to the early to late 19th and 20th century, and the earliest being 1845, when a woman named Marie Owens who was hired by the Chicago Police Department. She was the actual first recorded female law enforcement officer in the country, as you know, being recognized as an officer. But her, you know, her role as women was back in the day was, you know, basically dealing with issues. When it became, when it came to women and children, probably more of a social worker type issues such as children who are unruly, children who need to be removed from the home. Those are the type of incidents and issues that women is particularly. Miss Owens had to was assigned to take care of. However, moving up a little bit, fast forward a little bit, in 1910, there was a woman named Alice Debens Wells and this was actually the first woman who was appointed to actually have arresting powers to make formal arrests on. According to the police department, she was hired by Los Angeles Police and the LAPD gave this woman an opportunity to not only, you know, deal with women issues, but she did have a powers of arrest. Now, whether she was able to arrest males I don't know, but she was the first person recorded as actually giving arresting powers as a female officer, and that's forward into the mid 20th century, during World War Two, while men were had to vacate, leaving their posts as police officers to fight in the war, women stepped in and filled those positions, while men were, you know, had to, was drafted and off, you know, serving the country.

Speaker 1: 3:46

In World War Two and even after the war, women, more women, wanted to continue on having these positions as police officers, in working in the police departments, but again, I'm sure, and as noted, that their roles were very limited. You didn't see female walking doing field patrol. They were basically behind the desk, you know, doing the administrative work, but they were still considered police officers because they were hired by the police department. Also, during the civil rights movement, however, and this is within the 60s and 70s, the laws did start evolving and changing to where the Civil Rights Act helped dismantle legal barriers, allowing women to take more diverse roles in law enforcement. At that point women were allowed to go on certain calls Again more domestic type issues related incidents, still as a social worker, but they were allowed to be out in the field.

Speaker 1: 5:16

I can remember, and I'm telling my age those who in the audience may or may not know if you're over 45, over 50, you would remember this show called Dragnet. I remember watching Dragnet and this female officer that they would show on the show. They were typically women and their uniforms were skirt and heels, so obviously they weren't out in the field doing foot patrol or in the community. They were basically just like the actual male officers, co-workers. They were more like their secretaries. I always thought that was how come she's called police women so and so but yet she's really not, because she's not out in the field, she's not doing anything but being a secretary, but they still thought of them as a police officer. I know that there were documentaries of women who, during the 70s, were the first sergeants who did have to pay their dues, and they paid their dues hard Because you know the sexual harassment that a lot of them had to deal with, and not only the sexual harassment but just the general harassment of men not wanting females to be their equal as far as being a law enforcement officer.

Speaker 1: 7:12

There is a lot of pushback which prompted more obviously to have a lot of departments being sued because of the continued harassment, the sexual and the general harassment that a lot of women officers had to endure, had to go through and by the between the 80s and into the 2000, a lot of the issues had to be addressed. The sexual harassment had to be put in effect, the laws, the FMLA, family leave, and that's during the. You know, if a woman officer was pregnant, they were entitled to have a leave of absence while they're going through their paternity leave. That was something that had to be fought for because they weren't. You know, they were looked at as a female. You know you want to be an officer but you can't take off to be with your newborn or children or whatever your family or whatever. So again, all that had to be a policy had to be put in place. You know, protect, to give women the opportunity. We're officers but we're also women as well and we are entitled to have those type of benefits for us to still we still want to be officers and we're still good officers, but we're also, you know, have a right to have children as well. So you know that again had to be fought and during the time, during the time through the 80s and up into the 2000s, more and more women became moving up in rank.

Speaker 1: 9:19

I know when I worked in Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department during, let's see, from 93, 92, 93 up until 96, before I moved, went to other positions. I think the highest rank at that time was a female and she was at that time was a major and that was the highest. She was the highest rank officer in the department and she was a major, I'm pretty sure. Now I'm sure that they may be. I'm not sure if there is a might be a deputy chief now female deputy chief or I don't know if they had a female chief of police, but at that time when I worked there, I was working in the records department the highest rank law enforcement officer at that time was a major. So you know, it's still a lot of barriers that we still have to break down. The highest rank, as I was saying, was the first female chief of police, was in, let's see, portland, oregon, and her name was Penny Harrington and she became the first female chief of a major city like Portland.

Speaker 1: 11:01

And from that point, from when I was in 1985, also within, not only within major city police departments but with, you know, moving up in federal level, there were various women who moved into secret service, fbi, dea, us Marshals service. Women started to become more prominent in those type of working in federal agencies, federal law enforcement agencies, like those SWAT teams. During the 21st century I mean we're talking about, like now, more women are going in, coming in working in specialized unit tactical units as a SWAT. You know, usually most sharp shooters as you would, as we all know, would be men. But there are some real bad ass women out there who are just as good, if not sometimes better, as a sharpshooter and so they were working on in tactical units.

Speaker 1: 12:19

But even those ranks, in those positions, those specialized units, women still have challenges that still have to overcome the barriers of still you still have that gender bias role of harassment. Because you're a female, you have to feel like you have to, you know, do extra to prove yourself as an officer because of your gender and those you know. That's still an ongoing issue in a lot of departments, particularly I would think you know correct me if I'm wrong I would definitely love feedback in smaller departments, especially if you, you know, work in a smaller town or city and working for the sheriff's office or the police, your local police department that is not as large as a major city type department, I would think oftentimes there are a lot of hesitant of hiring female and if there are females, I'm sure, but there I'm not to say that there aren't any at all. There are plenty of females, but I'm just curious to see what type of challenges or barriers that a lot of females have to go through as a law enforcement officer in smaller jurisdictions. So we talked about the Leave Act of FMLA. We talked about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act that was in 1978, affirmative action policies, which was that evolved in between the 70s and the 80s.

Speaker 1: 14:11

So let's talk about a little bit about the leading leadership training and opportunities and development that women now have. A lot of agencies have recognized that a lack of women in leadership roles, have a lot of agencies that implemented training for leadership for women, particularly to become leaders and supervisors in their agencies. There's also, you know, strives in a lot of policies and procedures to promote fairness and equality and they also recognize the unique contribution that women can make into the law enforcement field because, let's face it, sometimes women, as we, as women even though a lot of us, you know, we always deemed us as being emotional, emotional we have a way of connecting on a personal level. We have a way of building a rapport a little more faster than our male counterparts. That's because most of us have this nurturing nature in us.

Speaker 1: 15:34

So when we deal with the community and deal with the public, particularly with domestic violence or sexual assaults type incidents, a female officer will give the victim or survivor of the crime a little more empathy. They're able to, we're able to connect to them because of the fact that we are female and we can, you know, kind of show more of a sympathetic and empathy towards the victim. You know, not always can you just get the facts, you know blunt and get the facts. You have to, kind of when the respect and the confidence of the victims that you are serving and the people that you serve in the public and women seem to have that knack of doing that. A lot of them, a lot of them are, you know, they're just as hard, if not harder, than male counterparts.

Speaker 1: 16:49

So, but I mean, as a whole, I'm saying that we have a way of, you know, connecting more with the public and especially when it comes to crime against person type of incidents, we also, I found not always, but we found that it's being when you are promoted into work it as a detective women again are a little more detail oriented. When, in doing an investigation of a case, because we as women, we, you know, can find things out that maybe, you know, men can't at that time we have a way of just being I guess we want to say nosy, but we have a way of getting the information that we need and know how to get it. I don't think, I don't know, because the people in the community don't pose women as a threat and so they let their guard down a little bit. But again, we can be persuasive in a lot of ways and sometimes you have to use different tactics and different techniques in order to get the information that we need to help bring justice to a crime that's been committed. And it's an advantage to have a male and female partner. When you're doing an investigative work or if you're even answering a call as a patrolman, a male and female partners to me would be an advantage because while your male officer talks to the man or whoever there's a woman, the female can make the connection towards the female complainant or witness.

Speaker 1: 19:10

So, while we still have a long way to go when we're working in law enforcement and working in public safety, but again it's all about evolving, it's all about gaining the respect, leaving that old school thinking that women should just be at home, they shouldn't be working. They should be just at home, especially shouldn't be working as a law enforcement officer. They should be just secretaries or whatever. There was nothing wrong with being a secretary, before anybody jumps. No, I'm just saying a lot of old school thinkers out there still feel that women shouldn't even be in this type of profession. But again, there are a lot of advantage to having women in law enforcement and in these type of fields because we can probably use our, as we say in the field, ipc skills, which is, our interpersonal communication skills. We can possibly bring down a heightened situation just by communicating and our way of communicating.

Speaker 1: 20:25

I know for me in my job. Sometimes the offenders that I deal with, I talk to them, especially when they're young. I talk to them like I would be their mom. They appreciate that and then they back off and back paddle and even if they want to have an attitude, I talk to them because a lot of them are. They're just young and I don't want to say young and dumb, but young, and I just talk to them like their mom, but also from with them, and I think they look back and they look at me and then they apologize oh yes, ma'am, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to, I'm not bad at you, I'm just bad at the body. I just talk to them and give them some try to put a little bit of knowledge in them. It sometimes helps. A lot of times it helped and they appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 21:41

I've had feedback from, especially when I was in the corrections officer and I worked in an all male prison. A lot of the inmates would say I appreciate you talking to me and I appreciate you treating me like I'm human instead of an inmate number. And you know I never had problems with them after that. You know, after they want to come with the attitude, but then when you come back at them and be fair, firm and consistent and then they'll kind of, you know, they'll backpedal and back down. So using effective communication oftentimes defuses a lot of situations and I think a lot of you know law enforcement officers, female law enforcement officers, have the opportunity to, you know have the gift of doing that. So so, with that being said, I just wanted to kind of give a kind of a history of women law enforcement and how it came to be and how important that we can, are and how we can contribute to serve our community. Just, you know, just like our male counterparts in our, you know, we all are part of a goal of making our community and our neighborhood safe, and so why not use each other's attributes, you know, as a man and as a, you know, as a woman officer, why don't we, you know, feed off of each other's attributes and make it better for all of us and for our community? So, thank you for listening and thank you for watching.

Speaker 1: 23:37

If you're watching me by YouTube next week, I'm not sure what the title would be, but I'm going to be doing something a little different with the podcast. It's going to be this is I do episodes like this, but I also was given an idea which I would love to do is do some real life case stories, talk about cases, experiences and cases of real life, real life incidents. Of course, you know, the names and places may change, you know, to protect all parties involved, but it's more like a documentary type of segment and I'm still trying to get the pieces, parts together. My team and I so it, you know. Just stay tuned for that, because I like telling stories, you know, and I think people would kind of connect better by learning about you know actual cases that are that many of us have gone through. But, with that being said, I appreciate you guys. Please be safe and stay healthy, and I will talk with you soon.