5 Women’s police departments
During the First World War, two options were proposed for women in policing – the construction of a separate, female force, or the employment of women within established forces. Many Chief Constables were resistant to both options but, eventually, a middle path was charted: women began to be recruited into established police forces but within separate departments and with demarcated duties.
The Police (Emergency Provisions) Act of 1915 allowed women to be appointed as constables (although Home Office policy was that they should not be sworn in). The 1919 Sex Disqualification Removal Act then permitted women’s entry into professions such as the law and the civil service, and the Metropolitan Police chose at this point to turn away from the separate services offered by the WPS and recruited 110 female officers. Other forces did likewise. By 1920, the Baird Committee concluded there was no legal justification from excluding women from policing and, in the same year, 43 police authorities in England and Wales were employing 238 women.
Figure 7: A Policewoman from Birmingham, c. 1958 [Description: A woman police officer in a uniform comprising of a mid-calf length skirt, belted tunic and cap talks to a little girl in a street outside some houses] Source: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/getting-a-word-of-advice-about-road-safety-from-mrs-news-photo/1450397923?adppopup=true
Rather than fully integrating women into police forces, however, the Baird Committee encouraged Chief Constables to develop separate structures and hierarchies. Separate women’s departments within forces were usually set up and female police officers were usually given duties separate to those of male officers.
By 1931 the duties of women police were:
- patrol duty
- escorting women and children, and taking statements from them in relation to sexual offences
- watching and searching female prisoners or those who had attempted suicide
- clerical work
- plain-clothes duties and detective work
- dealing with women and children reported missing, found, ill, injured, destitute or homeless.
For some female officers, professional segregation from their male colleagues was viewed positively. It shielded them from male colleagues who opposed their appointment and emphasised their ‘special sphere of usefulness’ (Jackson, 2006, p. 19). Women’s departments often became hubs of unique expertise around domestic abuse, rape and the support of vulnerable women and children. These departments also provided prospects for promotion, as many were led by female superintendents.
That said, the existence of separate women’s departments clearly implied that women were not suited to all aspects of police duty. The next activity explores this further.
Activity 4 Women’s police uniforms
While uniform might appear a relatively insignificant matter, the uniforms for women police officers (which were chosen by an entirely male cohort of Chief Constables) underscore the conceptual division of policing into ‘male’ and ‘female’ spheres.
Consider, for example, the new women’s uniform commissioned by the Metropolitan Police in 1967. In an effort to increase the recruitment of younger women, the design was commissioned from Norman Hartnell, celebrity designer and the Queen’s couturier at the time. Its stated aim was to combine ‘elegance with authority’.
How well adapted to the task of policing do these uniforms seem to you?
Figure 8: Uniform and cap designed for female police officers (1967).A stylised fashion drawing of two Metropolitan policewomen posing in the new uniform. The officer on the left wears a short cape over her uniform fastened at the neck with a chain; the officer on the right is wearing a jacket, knee length straight skirt. Both wear white gloves, flat black shoes, black stockings and soft caps.] Source: https://x.com/MPSHeritage/status/1362730342386454535
Discussion
While the uniform design in Figure 8 shows evidence that police forces were actively thinking of ways to attract women to their specialised female police departments, the uniforms were also divisive. They were physically restrictive, reinforcing the limited range of tasks which female police officers were allowed to undertake at this point. Pam Giles, an officer who served with the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, recalls this when looking back on the 1970s:
We were expected to get on the floor and check somebody’s exhaust and they put us in stockings and a skirt; we had mini truncheons for our handbags. When I look back, it’s ridiculous […] There were no protective helmets for women, not until they brought in the bowler hat. Before that it was white, soft, hats.
Separate women’s departments continued within policing until the 1970s. They allowed for the employment of women as police officers but on quite limited terms. In the later part of the twentieth century, however, social change and increasing female emancipation made these attitudes and practices appear increasingly outmoded, as the following section demonstrates.