What is a misogynistic female called?
Amanda Platell, Cressida Dick, Pippa Mills to name a few?
Why is it that the women that post “Be Kind” are often the nastiest, cattiest, and cruellist mean girls? This scenario played out very publicly last night on twitter surrounding misogyny in policing. Based on an incendiary and frankly Machiavellian Disney character baiting post by Amanda Platell’s all of a sudden the law enforcement community was united in being gobsmacked about misogyny.
It was much much easier to point to Platell’s ridiculous shitty post than actually be accountable for what Lancashire Police did by sharing private medical information of Nicola Bulley weeks after her appearance. In a very misguided quest to protect their own reputations, @lancspolice decided to discuss Bulley’s alcohol issues and her issues with the menopause and that she was “high risk.” This has now been called out as in invasive breach of her privacy by everyone from the Home Secretary to the IOPC.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if police had asked Platell to post it as law enforcement is now talking much more about the tweet than explaining the systemic misogyny in the force.
Platell’s post had already been pointed out to me by a supposedly serving male officer who had been haranguing me all day with his opinions and then reiterating them continually when I dared to continue to not agree. How dare I? How dare I, a civilian, hold an opinion on misogyny in the police force and media when he had taken the time to educate my little ole brain with Lancs Police’s good intentions. He informed me 17 times in fact before blocking me. Police Male Fragility will be addressed in a different piece when I have a month to research and reflect.
The next exchange alluding to the post was between Dame Lynne Owens and Chief Constable Pippa Mills about Madeleine Albright’s quote:
Now I know police need training in coercive control; domestic violence; racism; sexism and homophobia, but me thinks they also need some training in how to correctly use social media to risk even worse optics (if that was possible.)
My favourite response to this was Sue Fish replying simply with @flossgriffiths.
You see, Chief Constable Pippa Mills had publicly blocked Faye Louise Osmund-Smith (@flossgriffiths) a serving officer under her currently on maternity leave. Faye is a whistleblower that had waived anonymity not ten days prior to appear on ITV’s Exposure: Women in Policing- The Inside Story.
In the middle of the biggest crisis of confidence of women in the police and with Baroness Casey’s interim report on how female employees of the Met are treated (spoiler: not well); one of the few female Chief Constable is publicly blocking one of her employees who has been regularly and publicly identified as a whistleblower after being sexually assaulted at a work function. (Free hint to Chief Constable Mills: just mute people that annoy you on twitter. They can’t see it, and it leads to much fewer embarassing articles like this.) Also— is publicly being blocked by your Chief Constable actionable if you are already a whistleblower? Am sure some of my employment law readers will know this.
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