9 Career Paths Women Should Take To Destroy Gender Roles And Assumptions

7. Police Officer

More women should consider joining local law enforcement ranks, especially considering that a casual glance at the past year’s headlines mentioning incidents of police brutality is all that’s needed to make it apparent that something has to change. Interestingly, studies have shown that female officers are less authoritarian than men, relying less on physical force and more on effective communication to diffuse tense situations. However, women still only make up between 10-15% of the national police force.

Considering that abuses of force are a real issue, and that men simply cost more due to the sheer number of police brutality lawsuits, as a result of bad choices made by male police officers, it simply makes sense for more women to join local police departments. Using the $63.4 million dollars in payouts between 1990 and 1999 in the Los Angeles Police Department as an example, Katherine Spillar, national coordinator of the Feminist Majority Foundation, said the following: “Hiring equal numbers of women in the LAPD would go further toward reducing police brutality and misconduct than anything else the Department could do.” She added, “By contrast, $2.8 million was paid out on female officers for excessive force lawsuits – and not one female officer was named as a defendant in a sexual assault or domestic violence case.”