@LNOTHING EQUITABLE ABOUT LAPD'S GENDER-EQUITY PLAN[F/L]
(Resending for all needing)[F/L]
(For use by NYTimes News Service clients)[E/P]
     [E/P]
     @BBy LINDA SEEBACH[F/C]
@Lc.1993 Los Angeles Daily News[F/C]
^LOS ANGELES [-]No one could accuse the Women's Advisory Council of
excessive 
timidity in its recommendations to the Los Angeles Police
Commission, 
presented at a news conference Thursday.[E/P]
     The advisory council's blueprint for gender equity reads:
``Immediately 
Gender balance all Police Academy classes including all newly hired
and 
rehired groups of officers. Gender balance all publicly visible
LAPD 
positions, including the Police Commission, academy trainers, field
training 
officers, hiring and promotions panels, recruitment teams, and
honor 
guards.''[E/P]
     And in order to leave absolutely no doubt that the goal of
this exercise is 
quotas, not equity, City Council members Zev Yaroslavsky and Jackie
Goldberg 
announced they would move that the council set the a hiring goal
for women at 
exactly 43.4 percent of all new hires as of Jan. 1, 1994.[E/P]
     That suspiciously precise figure is supposed to be the
percentage of women 
in the workforce. Why anyone should think the figure is relevant is
not 
explained, probably because there is no good explanation. Many jobs
appeal 
differently to men and women, and it's simplistic to assume that 
discrimination is the only reason.[E/P]
     What is the percentage of women among those who want to be
police officers? 
Nobody knows that, although here's a hint: The percentage of female

applicants is currently about 24 percent.[E/P]
     Changes in recruiting practices might increase that
percentage, Yaroslavsky 
said, noting that recruiting at football games and military bases
tends to 
attract men rather than women.[E/P]
     ``Recruiters should target women now working in
female-dominated 
occupations,'' he said.[E/P]
     I'm all for outreach efforts to previously neglected
individuals. What 
bothers me is the determination of the results in advance. More men
than 
women are willing to accept being shot at as an occupational hazard

(something schoolteachers and nurses rarely have to worry about).
Maybe 
that's not inevitable, but I don't think it's simple to
change.[E/P]
     No woman is forced to work in a female-dominated occupation.
If a 
substantial number of women prefer to do that, though, the
available pool of 
applicants is different from the workforce as a whole.[E/P]
     Anyway, why should the police force have the same mix of
genders as the 
workforce? Doesn't it make just as much sense to have it match the 
criminals?[E/P]
     Supporters of this proposal cite the report of the Christopher
Commission, 
which found that female officers are much less likely than male
officers to 
use excessive force, so that increasing the number of women is the
key to 
reducing police violence.[E/P]
     At best, though, having half the force female would reduce the
violence to 
half what it would otherwise be. That's still not acceptable. To
reduce 
police violence, get rid of violent cops.[E/P]
     Actually, I'm sympathetic to the argument that women's
interpersonal skills 
are often better than men's, and that those skills can contribute
to 
excellent performance. But that makes me more skeptical, not less,
about the 
establishment of numerical goals.[E/P]
     If women make better cops than men, statistically, then the
more of them in 
the department the better. If they don't, then fewer is better. But
having 
exactly the same proportion as in the workforce is the least
plausible 
outcome.[E/P]
     The advisory council calls for eliminating irrelevant
barriers, like a 
wall-climbing exercise that is much harder for women than men. The
trick is 
determining what is truly irrelevant. Police work sometimes gets
pretty 
physical. Should size or strength count at all? If they do,
proportionately 
more women than men will be excluded. The difference may not be
large, but 
almost any physical standard at all will make the 43.4 percent
figure 
unrealistically high.[E/P]
     The council also wants to be sure that all criteria for
evaluating 
performance or suitability for promotion are free of adverse impact
on women. 
That's as it should be, except that in a system driven by numerical
goals, 
any difference in results will be considered an adverse
impact.[E/P]
     Under the heading of accountability, the advisory council says
gender equity 
must be incorporated into all assessments and evaluations.[E/P]
     ``For example,'' it says, ``deny promotions and perks to
officers who fail 
to adhere to gender equity behavior.''[E/P]
     The only way that can be interpreted in the field is to
require officers to 
grade men and women equally, regardless of their performance. And
when hiring 
for women has been less selective than for men [-] something that
is 
unavoidable if the percentage of women hired is significantly
higher than the 
percentage of female applicants [-] real performance differences
are only to 
be expected. Demanding that people ignore those differences creates
justified 
resentment and hostility [-] exactly the ingredients for
backlash.[E/P]
     That environment is particularly unfair to women officers who
are capable of 
succeeding without any special favors. Perhaps they have already
done that, 
in an atmosphere fairly enough described in the Christopher
Commission report 
as ``anti-female.'' As those women reach the point in their careers
where 
they qualify for executive positions, either they will be promoted
at much 
greater rates then men of similar seniority, or they will be joined
by a 
larger number of more recently hired women. Remember, the report
recommends 
gender balance for everything, immediately. But the pool of current
officers 
is only 14.4 percent female.[E/P]
     Maybe there really won't be any unfair promotions. But when
everybody knows 
that the people handing out promotions will be evaluated according
to whether 
they meet a percentage goal, it's not irrational for people (men
and women 
both) to assume they've bent their standards, whether a little or
a lot. And 
when they do [-] even once [-] they create a lot of victims. Every
man who 
missed out thinks he would have been the lucky one.[E/P]
     The atmosphere turns noxious, if it isn't already. And it sure
doesn't help 
that people who react this way are prejudged guilty.[E/P]
     ``Immediately and aggressively counter the backlash response
to this report 
anticipated in light of similar misconduct last fall by officers
opposing the 
City Council's `gender equity motions,''' the report says.[E/P]
     With such a small number of available female officers to staff
all those 
publicly visible positions, moreover, they are likely to find
themselves 
overwhelmed to the extent that their regular work suffers. That's
not going 
to be good for their careers. Besides, it's tiresome to be
constantly 
pestered to be a representative of the whole female sex.[E/P]
     ``Elevate the stature of the LAPD Women's Coordinator. Mandate
that she 
coordinate implementation of the gender equity plan, and give her
adequate 
staff and budget to do so,'' is another recommendation. Please
note, ``she'' 
and ``her.''[E/P]
     The whole report is an example of a good idea taken to such
extremes that it 
probably will do more harm than good. It is, in the worst sense of
the term, 
guilty of stereotyping women.[E/P]
     Even some of his liberal female friends, Yaroslavsky said,
have told him 
they would rather have a male officer come to their aid in a
difficult 
situation. That reaction is only made stronger by the suspicion
that female 
officers have been hired, or promoted, to fill a quota.[E/P]
     The Christopher Commission and the current report both
document real 
problems with sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the
police 
department. Sadly, the advisory council's recommendations could
make those 
problems worse. [E/P]