All about men

• 40000 NTOA (National Tactical Officers Association) Membership

  • 17 are women

• Male Assignment

  • Rarely an opening

    • Women are ostracized

    • Elite membership

    • Physical standards

  • Negotiators and K-9

• Masculine Symbolism

  • Militarism

  • Warriors

  • Hyper-masculine

Should women be on SWAT? Study case

Male officers

• Mean Age = 40

• Experience = 15 years

Women on SWAT

• 58% Yes

• 37% Yes-but

• 5% No

Female officers

Mean age = 39

Experience = 13 years

Want to be on SWAT

• 58 % yes

• 50% physically able

Female perspective: It’s all about gender

• “SWAT mainly enlists men and rarely has women on their team... women are not always welcome”

• “women have heightened senses compared to men and this would be an asset to any SWAT team”

• “There are no women on the SWAT so obviously they don’t fit”

Male perspective: it’s not about gender

• “I don’t think it has anything to do with gender, because there are guys in this job that can’t do the job - I don’t have a problem with that”

• “I think its more a cultural thing more than anything else - they [women] don’t want to be part of the team”

Female perspective: Women are cops too

• “ A woman police officer tried out for the team and beat out the male officer in firearms and physically, but the man was selected for the team”

• “Women can and do fit in with SWAT. it’s not whether women fit in or not, it is 'are you willing to accept and support women in SWAT?’”

• Females and males can and od benefit each other on calls, dealing with people and diverse situations

==The male perspective: Women are different ==

• “ I think that very few of the women have that mindset, women are different than men”

• “women would rather reason it out and take the time to work solutions out”

• “Women don’t come with the killer instinct”

• “you want to play with the big boys; you’re going to be expected to do what the big boys do”

The male perspective: Physical challenge

• “women would fit in fine if she was physically able”

• “If she could pull my shattered back out of a kill zone or she could pick up the biggest guy and drag him out of a kill zone, I could respect that”

• “once they see what we do, the demands that are out on guys, she’d want no part of it - after they get a taste of what we do”

Female perspective: Physical challenge

• “qualifications are made for men who unfortunately have the upper body strength that women do not”

• “it would be very challenging, but I felt I could not pass the qualifications”

• “Physically, I could never equal male officer’s physical strengths and stamina since I’m 5’2” and weigh half of what they do”

Male perspective: Being politically correct

• “Some of the things that we say, it would be wise to keep your mouth shut. it would change a lot of things around here”

• “it would mean minding your ps and qs”

• “you’re down and dirty, things are being said. We’d need to watch out for tongues. it’s just too easy to work with a bunch of guys so that you can do virtually anything”

Boys will be boys

• None of the interviewed teams had active female technical members

• agreed that women officers would be welcomed if they could meet the same physical standards

• recognized that they would be forced to alter the current masculine environment to be more politically correct around women

• argued that female officers lack the male, SWAT mentality.