Brett Grange, Greater Manchester Police Federation Equality Lead, reflects on #InternationalWomensDay

8 March 2022

Brett Grange, Greater Manchester Police Federation Equality Lead, reflects on International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day is a positive opportunity to highlight the many issues that female police officers still face, Brett said.

The Federation also reinforced its message to members that it is there to support and represent victims of alleged workplace harassment.

Equality Lead Brett Grange said: “We are everyone’s Federation and if you are being harassed in the workplace we can support you. All our workplace Reps are expected to complete a course on the Equality Act, including the representation of officers who have been victims of workplace harassment.”

Greater Manchester Police Federation has put together new guidance that outlines how it can help female officers in harassment incidents.

He said: “International Women’s Day is a chance to get everybody to refocus on the fact that we’ve still got a way to go around gender equality.

“I think many people believe this is a solved problem, but recent events have sadly shown that we haven’t made the progress we think we’ve made around misogyny and treating women fairly.

“We still have a gender pay gap. We still have a gender attainment gap. We still have things in society that are automatically less fair to women. So we can’t say we’ve resolved the gender imbalance, that women have an equal standing in society. And in policing, like any employer, we’ve got work to do to make sure that we’re supportive to our female members.”

He added: “The recent uplift in maternity leave is a good example of how all the stakeholders in policing, when they work together, can achieve a better result for women. The Federation can be at the table, can bang the drum and make sure that the position of women can be on equal footing to that of men.

“We need to take a step back, take stock, and refocus on making sure that we make our workplace equally open to females, as well as it is to males.”