Small Female Officer and Glock vs M&P

[mrs_keck10]

Question: Did you have to pass the same tests with the same standards as a male? Again, I have NO problem with women cops, as long as they are held to the same standards as men. When I went through the academy, women didn't have to do the same amount of pushups or situps as men did. They even got more time to complete the 1.5 mile run. I know men inherently have more upper body strength, but I've seen women smoke the men on the PT test. It can be done.

Women are not held to the same standards but in boot camp I was treated more harshly than the men it actually weeded out a few who couldn't handle the mental or physical stress and to this day I outperform my husband at the gym with a higher body fat count and less height. You don't have to make the standards the same because I don't give a **** about how buff I am I am not going to outrun a fit guy that's 5'9" in a 1.5 mile run but I can probably stay on my feet longer grappling because women have a lower center of gravity. That is the problem with "standardizing" you take one group and design everything around them where you should be training in strengths. I'm fast in a short distance but my genetic build makes me more stable for dodging obstacles and doing agility training because of my low center of gravity but you catch me in a long run and well my inseam is a 30 making my stride very short....then again if it were up to me I would be training for long range rifle use.

 

[SMMAssociates]

IMHO, except for a couple of young ladies that I know who are pretty well as big as I am (I'm 6'1", and about 320# - these two are quite a bit lighter), presuming identical physical abilities probably isn't a good idea....

Krav Maga or some other martial arts skills can cover most of the physical differences, IMHO, anyway, with the exception of sheer size issues.

All of that said, the job can be physically demanding, and some mix of endurance and being able to defend oneself and/or take a punch is important. (A good vest is a big help there, too. It will absorb a lot of punishment from purely physical contact - body parts or impact weapons.)

(The Township has a very small female Officer who's just a bit over 40 - she mostly works inside as a Detective. Whenever I see her in full uniform, I tend to react as "wow, she really looks frumpy!". Then the brain kicks in - she's got a vest on, and has her hair tied back and out of the way. I wouldn't want to tangle with her, even though I'm considerably bigger. Running gag - when I pinned on my first badge, she was still in diapers.)

It all boils down to training, I think.... There may be more of a problem for the guys - the smaller ones seem to get into more fights. I think there's a basic "don't fight with the girls" thing mostly still working, but the "I can take that little guy" attitude's out there, too.... You can train around that....

Decades ago, a friend of mine (6'2", 250# or thereabouts at the time) was assigned a very small female partner and a Volvo set up as a cage car. (The car thing was a test.) The two of them had to grab up a belligerent drunk, who was a tad bigger than my friend. They managed to wrestle him to the car. When he saw the car, and took a good hard look at the female Officer, he calmly sat down in the back seat without incident. Apparently he figured it would take a couple guys his size to stuff him into that car, whereas with the pair of Officers he was dealing with, he'd very definitely get hurt a lot....

Anyway, it's not standardization, IMHO, as much as being able to put out a "presence". A guy like me only really has to stand there, other than when the drunk is in an uncooperative mood. A small female has to express "cooperate or it's going to take a while to heal", even if she has no intention of touching the guy.

Not perfect, but workable....

Regards,