In today’s Chronicle, reporter Mike Tolson penned one of those one-sided “news analysis” pieces that has, unfortunately, displaced so much hard-news reporting from newspapers all over.
The thrust of the 22-graf, front-page story is that women are underrepresented in fire departments across the country and in Houston. The story also implicitly links recent harassment and bad behavior in the HFD with the “under-representation.” Here are some illustrative grafs:
At the same time that U.S. military branches and law enforcement agencies were successfully bringing women into their ranks, the great majority of fire departments — including HFD — failed to follow suit. The result is a percentage of female firefighters well below that of most occupations and much smaller than what anyone might have expected a generation ago when lawsuits and affirmative action put an end to the firehouse as an exclusively white male domain.
Women may represent about 13 percent of law enforcement patrol officers according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, but they are less than 5 percent of the nation’s firefighters.
Houston’s numbers are even lower than the national average. Its 103 female employees account for only 2.6 percent of the department. That’s barely more than one woman per station, meaning that some shifts and some fire houses remain de facto all male, and that women in some stations continue to feel as if they are unwelcome pioneers.
[snip]
“If you put one woman in a fraternity of men, you can pretty much figure out how they are going to be treated,” said attorney Joe Ahmad, who represents the two HFD women whose complaints of harassment recently became front-page news. “If the numbers don’t change, it’s virtually impossible to fix the problem.”
Synopsis: Women are “underrepresented” in fire departments, especially in Houston, which paves the way for horrible treatment, which perpetuates the mean boys club. And not a single disagreeing voice is quoted! What a fine editorial posing as a news story.
Never mind, of course, that (as Michael Berry pointed out on the radio today) firefighters are expected to pass demanding physical exams, that some women are unable to do so, and that the number of applicants is likely limited, in part, by the physical demands of the job. That realistic view isn’t addressed seriously in this editorial posing as a news story.
Now, none of this is offered as an excuse for the firemen who have behaved badly in the department, which probably does dissuade some physically qualified women from pursuing HFD careers. The City of Houston should make every effort to root out those misbehaving employees, and to establish a culture that does not condone such activity.
Beyond that, though, we’re okay with requiring our firefighters to meet appropriate physical qualifications (that might come into play, say, when rescuing people from fires).
If the Chronicle wants to editorialize on the matter, we’d suggest the opinion page is the right place for that. Well, except for the fact that Jeff Cohen fired the only two women on his editorial board in the last purge (since adding one woman to the remaining Caucasian Male think tank). Maybe that section doesn’t have the most credibility on the topic.
