Citing an urgent need to address gender-based harassment, discrimination and bullying, a group of current and former police officers has established a national advocacy group to support female cops in a workplace where they say women are too often treated as outsiders.

The National Women in Law Enforcement Association will represent a growing group of women officers alleging discrimination and harassment on the job — and who believe there is little recourse, according to organizers.

“Women in policing, they’re in distress right now,” says Waterloo police Const. Angelina Rivers, who is part of a proposed class-action lawsuit against the Waterloo police board and its union alleging gender-based bullying, misconduct and more.

“Women are leaving policing in droves, and there’s a reason for that,” she says.

Recent research examining the experience of female officers in Canada has raised concerns about the persistence of an “old boys” club’ within policing, even as more women sign onto the force.

In her study of female police officers in Ontario, Lesley Bikos, a former London, Ont. officer now pursuing her PhD studying police culture at Western University, found officers regularly subjected to verbal harassment — including being called “badge bunny” or a “tomboy” — and having to withstand hearing sexist jokes. Women officers also had to work harder to earn the respect automatically granted to their male counterparts and hesitated calling for backup out of fear of being called weak, Bikos found.

Officers who become mothers, meanwhile, face another set of challenges, including being passed over for promotions because of a perception they won’t be as dedicated, according to research out of Wilfrid Laurier University.

The new women’s policing advocacy group seeks to be both a support network for female police officers and group lobbying for change at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, according to its founders.

Rivers said the group was born out of the realization that the ongoing proposed lawsuit against Waterloo police will take years to work its way through the courts. That’s time female officers be facing discrimination do not have, she said.

The proposed lawsuit, which is seeking more than $165 million on behalf of past and present female Waterloo police officers, alleges a sexist workplace culture that subjects some female staff to verbal, physical and sexual harassment.

None of the allegations have been tested in court.

The Waterloo Police Services Board has said it would challenge the suit, calling it “inappropriate” and saying filing a complaint under Ontario’s Police Services Act would have been “the appropriate means to deal with the allegations.”

When the lawsuit was launched earlier this year, Waterloo Police Chief Bryan Larkin said some of the allegations had only just been brought to the force, while others had been dealt with through an independent law firm’s investigation.

Rivers said that among the most pressing concerns for the new group is the lack of remedy for female officers who have experienced anything from verbal harassment to unwanted sexual advances or more. Raising the alarm bells by going to a supervisor and lodging a complaint, she said, can result in retaliation that’s only damaging for the officer herself.

In her own case, Rivers alleges male officers began spreading rumours that she was having an affair with a colleague. In response, she alleges, her immediate superior sent her sexually explicit texts, including requests for her to send naked pictures.

When she complained, Rivers claims she was reassigned to an undesirable position. She is currently on leave from the force.

The retaliation to speaking out can be worse than the original offence, says Const. Kim Prodaniuk, an officer with the Calgary Police Service who helped establish the national advocacy group.

Prodaniuk says she got a reputation as a “bitch” after speaking out against what she said was gender-based discrimination from a supervisor.

“It spread around the police service that . . . I can’t be trusted. Basically a lot of prison mentality that you’re a ‘rat.’ That had a whole bunch of consequences for me as a police officer,” she said in an interview Monday.

That included not being able to find a police partner when she was working in a high-crime area because she wasn’t seen as “trustworthy,” Prodaniuk said. She is currently on leave from the force.

The Calgary Police Service told its civilian oversight commission earlier this year it would take action in response to allegations of gender discrimination within the force, including a review of its hiring and promotion policies and the establishment of an independent whistle-blowing program.

Jen Magnus, a former Calgary officer who also helped establish the group, publicly resigned in February at a Calgary police commission meeting after coming forward with allegations of workplace harassment and bullying. Magnus claims her complaints were minimized when she went to superiors, and the subsequent retaliation she faced discouraged others from speaking out.

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“It was clear to me that the culture wasn’t going to change with one sole voice complaining,” she said. “You need a national association like this for people to find that strength and find that voice.”

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

With files from The Canadian Press