It’s Not a Debate Any Longer
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR’S OPINION
City firefighter found guilty of sexual harassment,” read the news clipping. The story reported on a male firefighter on the West Coast suspended for slapping a female firefighter on the backside and trying to grab her breasts while they were on duty. With a public and media that are pretty firmly on our side, I wonder why we sometimes go so far out of our way to look so bad.
It’s high time we put this crap behind us.
Not too long ago, a similar assault in a New York City fire station kept the news media busy for weeks. Records of other such incidents have cropped up in the national news since women joined the fire service. Thank God they’re occurring less and less. The point is that the incidents should have served as costly and embarrassing examples of how not to accomplish an objective. They should also have emphasized the need for training of the members of a traditionally “stag” organization, our fire service, to be able to conform to the law.
While there are many departments and municipalities that have succeeded in recruiting and integrating women into the fire service, there are still many more that haven’t.
The national issue of women in the fire service is not a debate any longer. It isn’t up to the department to hedge or to rig test-taking procedures. And it certainly isn’t up to the rank and file to decide who will be accepted and who will not. Those battles have been fought in the courts. It’s not a matter of traditional likes and dislikes—it’s the law, man!
Random sensitivity training is (sometimes) not enough. We’ve trained our fire service leaders to identify and be sensitive to those of our members who are alcoholics and drug abusers. We’ve cajoled our decision-makers to create expensive rehabilitation programs to bring those so identified back into our society as quickly, efficiently, and humanely as possible. It seems that such an intensive program may be necessary on sexual harassment.
Firefighters who identify themselves by unacceptable and criminal attitudes and behavior toward another human being must have been obvious before the first female firefighter arrived at the station. Where are the adjustment and rehabilitation programs for them?
