Kylie Lang: Worst thing exposed by horrifying Qld police inquiry
Allegations about misogyny and sexual harassment in the police service has shocked Queensland but why has is taken so long to commit to ridding the force of these creeps, asks Kyle Lang.
Kylie Lang
Don't miss out on the headlines from Kylie Lang. Followed categories will be added to My News.
When I started out in journalism I would have welcomed a training course on how to deal with leches. I would have been better prepared to disarm unwanted advances that, as “fresh meat”, were considered inevitable.
Instead, I remember feeling deeply uncomfortable, and unsure of the best way to rebuff – so I tried to steer clear of the known creeps.
That was 30 years ago and, in my experience at least, the culture has changed.
It needed to.
So I find it staggering such courses are being offered today to female recruits in the Queensland Police Service.
What year are we living in?
And how can we ever expect domestic violence matters to be treated with the gravity they deserve – rather than “just a domestic” – when misogyny and sexual harassment are rife in the force, including among officers called out to such incidents?
As The Courier-Mail revealed on Thursday morning, senior female officers have warned recruits – singled out from men for training before being sworn in – that they are “fresh meat”.
They should expect to be hit on by men when they join stations, partly due to the intense working environment.
Like the police force is somehow distinct from other high-pressured fields such as medicine, law and, yes, the media. I don’t think so.
Tellingly, recruits were not instructed on how to report sexual harassment in the workplace.
Perhaps the assumption is to suck it up, buttercup. One Courier-Mail reader put it this way: “If you can’t cut the mustard then perhaps another career choice would be more appropriate?”
Jackie went on to say: “If any significant issues had arisen, I’m dead sure the women involved would have reported it, or would have been evident.
“Perhaps placing women among men in the front line hasn’t been such a roaring success as some would have it? Blokes are blokes.” Not to singularly have a crack at Jackie – because this line of thinking is not uncommon – but the boys-will-be-boys defence belongs in a time capsule sent out to sea never to return to shore.
And as for women reporting harassment, there is nothing “dead sure” about that.
This has been demonstrated in the current Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Police Service responses to domestic and family violence.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Ruth O’Gorman KC, has said female officers had “paid the price” for reporting the sexist and misogynist remarks and had to leave their roles – or decided to quit – after male officers were dealt with by local managerial guidance in which they had a discussion with a superior about their conduct before returning to work.
The inquiry has laid bare a culture of misogyny and sexism where male officers are ineffectively disciplined for frightening sexual behaviour towards young female colleagues.
Last week an emotional Commissioner Katarina Carroll told the inquiry she had been sexually assaulted herself and harassed multiple times in the ’80s and ’90s.
She also said she wanted powers to personally sack cops who behaved inappropriately.
But the question must be asked: Why has it taken so long to commit to ridding the force of creeps?
Ms Carroll has been in the job for three years, and her own traumatic experiences decades ago surely should have motivated swift and decisive action.
After justifiable public outrage over the “fresh meat” training, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has done what she does best – turning a long-overdue initiative into a political opportunity, agreeing on Thursday afternoon to support Ms Carroll’s request for “no confidence” powers.
Call me a cynic but it appears neither Ms Carroll nor Ms Palaszczuk would have done anything about the toxic and misogynistic culture in the police force without an inquiry or this newspaper shining a spotlight on it.
In today’s world, we all have a right to feel safe in our work environment, instead of fearing unwanted advances from leches.
And as citizens, we should be able to have full confidence in our police. It’s high time the force got with the program.
More Coverage
In all my years reporting on your children, nothing has shaken me more than this
The harsh reality is that our children are in strife and something must be done to save them, writes The Courier-Mail’s associate editor Kylie Lang.
If you blindly defend elite school scandals ‘you can’t handle the truth’
Schools caught out by student scandals should seek to learn from mistakes and unfortunate incidents. But so many past students think exposing the problem is worse than the issue itself, writes Kylie Lang.