Gender Inequality In Law Enforcement Essay

1285 Words6 Pages

Gender inequality is prevalent globally, and the United States is not foreign to this discrimination. Within one of the largest agencies of not just the nation, but the world, lies one of the most significant examples of gender discrimination in the workforce. Law enforcement agencies across the nation are lacking in female representatives. Society has long labeled and limited women to what men believed were appropriate positions that fit the assumed female lack in physical and emotional ability. This has led the women of society to become confined by the parameters of a masculinized institution. Because of this, female officers face external and internal adversity. The result of this is a struggle to see gender equality in the United States police force. There have been many feats in the female struggle in law enforcement but the issue remains yet to be fully addressed. And although there have been many progressive changes in the institution and acceptance of women in the field, the reality is that it is still a male …show more content…

The United States in its origins was established as a patriarchal society, with men holding all the rights. Since America’s colonial period, gender inequality was prevalent. Women held jobs that accompanied their families or husbands, and did not hold jobs of their own. Women’s work consisted of household jobs and centered on the home, a norm that was later romanticized as the Domestic Sphere. From then on, through changing times, women have more feats towards workforce equality. A great beginning of workplace equality reform can be found in the second wave of feminism in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Liberal feminists fought for workplace equality via anti-discrimination laws and addressed problems such as denial to equal access of better and higher ranking jobs, salary and pay inequity, and even unfair education opportunities