Why you don't find a woman SHO at police stations

Women are definitely more unwilling to take on greater job related stress than men because of the already higher stress levels on account of domestic issues.

Analogous to a collector's posting for an IAS officer and a SP for an IPS official in a district, is a posting as station house officer in-charge of a police station (SHO). It is considered not only a challenge but recognition and a chance to prove one's professional abilities and competence. Conventional thinking would then make one believe that both men and women, having chosen to work in the police force would look forward to a posting as SHO to prove their mettle. And add all the talk of women empowerment and women's quotas, women police officers would be only too willing to take up this position at least in urban areas. Many would also believe that women police officers would vie with each other to be posted as SHOs, not only in all women police stations (which can be counted on fingertips), but at important police stations to climb up their career ladder with acclaim.

I never imagined that this was far from the grim reality. The realisation of the problem came through as I accidently happened to sit through a meeting to find suitable women SHOs. Not a single woman police officer wanted to be posted as the SHO of a police station. Name the reason and you would hear it all - children's education, husband's tough job, parents and in-laws' illness, not to mention one's own illness, or even a deadly combination of all the above reasons to consciously avoid a posting as SHO. One of them actually said that for 15 years she has been in an administrative job in the police force and just wasn't motivated to take up a professionally demanding 24x7 policing job! One said that having worked in the police control room for ten years she would not venture into any posting out of the control room - that was her level of comfort in the police force - the control room. Some were even happy to forgo their promotion in case a posting as SHO is linked to a promotion - a typical answer to ensure filling of vacancies in tough jobs or in hard areas especially when officers don't volunteer to be posted such as in the Northeast. Isn't the reality then intriguing? Were these the real issues or was there a deeper malaise? Some reasons given by lady officers for not accepting the tough job seemed genuine but then solutions to the problems they listed were not insurmountable.

With a little innovation the work place could become a more caring, enjoyable and tension-free place. Couldn't the police headquarters or even the police station have - a crèche for small children, the best tutorial centre for children in crucial classes - of course on payment? Assuming that the employer provided these facilities, would then the women police officers happily become SHOs? My guess and this is confirmed from the lady officers is the answer would still be a big NO. The reason is the larger ecosystem around which they would have to work as SHOs which includes the fear of getting entangled in a politically sensitive case, the fear of facing up to bosses who are corrupt and politically connected, the fear of discrimination, the fear of not being able to stand up now and face a probe later, the thought and fear of not being able to attend to your kid during exams, the mere thought of not being able to attend to your ill parents when there are riots in your jurisdiction or a politically sensitive murder in your area, and so on and so forth. Does the same apply to men? Why then is the percentage of men SHO much higher? When it comes to men employees, the domestic issues are taken care of if their wives aren't working, but still many more men would be willing to take the risk of facing the cons of a station house posting and enjoy the perks of a posting as SHO and climb the career ladder faster than women officers.

Women are definitely more unwilling to take on greater job-related stress than men because of the already higher stress levels on account of domestic issues and are content to go "through the motions " as it were in their jobs, even willing to forgo promotions for presumably domestic bliss. In a scenario where there is a genuine concern to increase not only the number of women officers in the police, but to post them in crucial jobs, the unwillingness of women officers to take on cutting-edge jobs is definitely a symptom of a large malaise in the ecosystem in which the police and the civil service operate. Recently, there have been interesting innovations such as provisions of childcare leave, but this makes the women officers escape the work environment rather than integrating them with their male counterparts and facing up to the challenges of a tough work environment. Making women leave the work environment by granting them childcare leave in the name of empowering women officers is at best an escapist solution. The idea of making the work environment itself a more satisfying, secure and enjoyable experience hasn't caught any attention as our solutions are as usual symptomatic and don't address the real issues.

Provision of crèches and tutors for the kids and other facilities will then help but will not by themselves create conditions conducive to ensuring willingness amongst women officers to be posted at the cutting edge of police/civil administration. Does that mean we wait for the ecosystem to change (that probably will never!) or provide facilities as a counter to the common reasons given by them for not taking up professionally demanding jobs. Surely, recruitment by itself doesn't empower women, their retention and placing them at the cutting edge not only empowers them but also goes a long way in resolving not only women's security issues but other larger societal issues that we have been grappling with for too long. Then in our own interest should not the lady SHO be entitled and given some extra facilities that many other men and women can routinely access, since their jobs are not as demanding, especially since they don't work in as difficult and hostile an environment that the lady SHO does.

Next time you visit a police station, ponder whether you would rather have a woman in-charge with some extra facilities thrown in for her or continuance of the existing set up which rehashes and gives you the same answers to the same problems that have plagued us for so long. Maybe, in the long-run walking an extra mile for the lady SHO would help to change the ecosystem around which the law enforcement agencies operate and that in turn will make more lady officers to willingly opt to work at the level that actually matters the most.