The police: attitudes toward women.

[Spooky2000]

I'm not sure that this is the right forum, but given that my focus is only on how women are affected, I thought I'd put it here.

Women and the police. I've not much good to say about the police tbh, and that's as a professional myself. My experience when I've reported serious abuse in the past and provided credible evidence of it has been that they've dismissed it, refused to investigate and when I've pushed further and complained, defended their position. In one case there was CCTV from 3 places that they didn't even go to look at, let alone obtain for the purposes of prosecution.

Several female friends report the same issue. One of my close female friends is an ex-Detective Sergeant and left the force owing to the entrenched misogyny that she encountered both to herself and the victims she was dealing with. Her book on this comes out later this year.

Conversely, when there is the matter of DARVO, I have witnessed male police officers being very sympathetic to the male 'victims' and the court systems also statistically treats women 'offenders' - whether this is as a result of reactive abuse or not - much more harshly than men in terms of support and sentencing.

I for one am absolutely sick to death of this. What with the Met, bent police officers, misogyny, sexism and the ineptitude dealing with violence against women and girls I have no faith in them whatsoever.

What can I do about this?

Get more women into the police. Men won’t change their attitudes, so women need to be doing the job.

If only it were that simple. Some of the women I've met as police officers are just too intimidated to challenge what they see.

I don't think that getting more women into the force would make much difference because women can be just as misogynist and make the same errors as men.

In the case of Banaz Mahmod for example, it was a female police officer who said she was a 'drama queen' and dismissed her.

The whole culture, which has been found several times, to be institutionally racist and misogynist needs to change. They need better independent safeguards and training as well as zero tolerance for misogyny.

I can only agree with all of that.
When I was 14 and SA'd, ONE police officer (a woman) was helpful, all of the others (men & women) treated me as "just another victim - next please!".

Dr Jessica Taylor works on this issue - maybe check out her socials/site?

I'm in my 60s and I have never once had a good experience with the police.

Whenever I have had to call them to serious violent situations, they have let me down by not arresting the culprit, or just letting them go even when it's clear the law has been broken.

My worst experience with them happened late one night in 1992 when my 6ft 4 inch drunk, abusive ex boyfriend was dragging me along on my arse along the pavement by my arm, dragging me to force me into his flat to rape me (again). I was screaming and someone in a pub rang the police. When the cop car screeched to a halt they didn't even get out. One officer rolled down his window and asked what was going on, my ex said I was drunk and he was taking me home for my own safety, and they drove away.

Fast forward to 2018. The police came to my door to arrest me for supposedly sending "Malicious Communcations" online. Yes, I had called a vicious trans activist a man.

As a result of all this, I would not piss on one now if he was on fire.