ABSTRACT
Governments, fire services and trade unions around the world have met with limited success in their efforts to increase the amount of women in the fire service. Despite the UK’s recruitment of women starting in 1982 and an expectation that levels of recruitment would achieve 14% (CLG, 2008a), women’s employment appears to stall at around 4% (DCLG, 2013a)1. On a positive note, it is possible to recognise that some men are starting to accept women as colleagues, but this is more often about ‘their woman’ on their team or ‘watch’ as firefighters call the groups they work in. Sadly, there is little sign that this acceptance is developing into a cohort of men who will actively challenge sexism. Men who accept ‘their woman’ can still be found challenging women who work on other watches. This points to two major difficulties when employing women in the fire service – sexism, which leads to high levels of sexual harassment that, in its simplest form, is a constant drip of negativity towards female firefighters, and men’s actual failure to challenge, even recognise the sexism in their own ranks.
