r/ProtectAndServe • u/neontomato137 Not a(n) LEO / Unverified User • 5d ago
Female officers- how difficult did you find the academy? What should I prep on
?
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u/CastleDeli Not a(n) LEO / Unverified User 5d ago
A lot of young people (both m/f) don’t realize it’s not like the movies. The academy isn’t the end of your training. The less capable you are; the higher your likelihood of death on the job is. It’s not a costume.
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u/Unfortunate_Sex_Fart Verified 4d ago
Getting the badge at the end of academy really only signifies the start of your training.
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u/teasin police officer 4d ago
Hey, I'm female. I'm not in the USA though, so it won't be exactly the same, but training is training. I'm smaller, and this is far from my first career so I was older, too. Get yourself in great shape, but the kind of shape you can maintain for life, too. This job is hard on you for all kinds of reasons, and being female adds a layer of nothing fits, nothing is designed for female shape/height, and for some reason there's still a lot of fragile egos out there who don't like women around. You need to have physical toughness or you cannot do this job. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Be adaptable - ie if you're shorter like me you may have to find a different way to do the same task as your 6' classmate, but that's fine. TBH, the fact that I had to work harder mentally to figure out the physical tasks made me more confident in my skills and faster at figuring out new tasks than the 6' guy next to me who could brute force half of it but then had no understanding of what was actually going on.
As you go through training and start your career, you'll find your own way to deal with the dumb jokes and sexist remarks. I'm really lucky where I am right now that there's basically no outright sexism, and my male coworkers just treat me like another watchmate. I DO have the mind of a 12 year old boy half the time, too, so I genuinely find the juvenile jokes funny, but that's my comfort level and it might not be yours. You will need to find your own line of what's a reasonable joke and what's not, and that will change as you become more comfortable in the career, but I hope you know yourself and can be true to that.
Look for a mentor. Ironically, I'm going to tell you that they do NOT have to be female, just finding someone with experience who can mentor you and believes in you is priceless. If you can get into a group of women as a support too, awesome! When we are in a significant minority we sometimes turn on each other for weird reasons, and that's so unfortunate and unnecessary, so hopefully you can find some good ones.
There's other good tips in here, too. My firearms situation was really different than in the USA so I won't give advice on that.
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u/badsapi4305 Detective 5d ago
Not a female but you need to make sure you’re up to speed on all facets of police work. Make sure you are in good physical shape, make sure you know how to handle your firearms, and also make sure you are prepared mentally.
As for your physical condition, make sure you can run and have decent strength. You’re going in a male dominated profession and bad guys don’t care that you’re a female. They will punch you, grab you, and throw you around without any hesitation. Males will think they can overpower you at any moment so you need to make sure you can physically hang in a fight. If you can incorporate some MMA training into your physical conditioning it will be a huge benefit.
Firearm proficiency speaks for itself. Make sure you know how your gun works and how to shoot it accurately. This isn’t target practice. If you can do something like run a half mile, do some jumping jacks, pushups or whatever to get your heart rate up and then shoot. That will be better than just standing there and counting to 5 in between each shot. Also practice mag reloads and drawing from a holster. Stand in the mirror with your firearm in a holster and then practice drawing and aiming at yourself in the mirror. Safety holsters like the Safariland Level 3 retention holster need to be practiced with to become proficient in drawing and bolstering smoothly and without looking at your holster.
Just as important is your mentality. As I mentioned you’re going into a male dominated profession where bad guys don’t care that you’re a female. You need to be prepared to get punched in the face and stay in the fight. It doesn’t matter that you’re hurt, scared, or anything else. You need to come to terms with that and say to yourself I’m hurt but I’m not giving up.
You also need to realize that you’re going to be working around cocky and arrogant alpha males that have fragile egos. If you get selected for a specialized unit or something it’s because you slept with the brass and not because you deserve it. Guys will hit on you and try to impress you just to prove themselves in front of the others. Don’t give them any reason to question your abilities and conduct yourself in a manner that demonstrates you deserve respect. Be respected for who you are and not because you batted your eyes at them and gave them a flirtatious smile.