Discussion of Women at SPD Skips Over Men’s Behavior

During a meeting of the Seattle City Council’s public safety committee meeting Tuesday, the council made it through through a nearly hour-long presentation and discussion of the 30 by 30 Initiative—a nationwide effort to hire more female police officers, which Seattle officially joined in 2021—with almost no mention of the problem female SPD officers cited most often as a barrier to recruitment and retention: The widespread culture of misogyny, gender discrimination, and harassment at the department.

Instead, SPD representatives and council members talked at length about the need to accommodate women while they are pregnant and parenting small children, by providing rooms for milk pumping, flexible schedules, and access to child care.