3 Chapter 3 Female Officers and Their Drive to Succeed

When it comes to women in the workforce, they are often underestimated, even in today’s more progressive society. Women are often seen as smaller and therefore weaker and not as capable compared to their male counterparts, especially when it comes to jobs that are more physically straining. This is a stigma that some people still believe in quite strongly today. When looking at the background of the police force in Sweden, one can see there were some struggles in getting the force to be more equal when it came to their male and female officers on the force. The Swedish police force is still a majority male, which can make it harder for women to rise in their ranks. By having this kind of background information, one can assume that Anna in Sun Storm is very hardworking and has earned the respect of her male colleagues, despite the obstacles she may face.

Women in the Swedish police force have been fighting for many years to receive the same equality as their male co-workers. Sweden seems to be one of the rising leaders in employing females in their police force with a large percentage of 40% of their force being made up of females. This is a huge accomplishment for Sweden. However, when looking at the dates of these amazing accomplishments, it is seen that this percentage was only recently achieved in 2011. While they are doing a lot better than most, the percentage is still shy of 50/50 in the police force when it comes to male and female officers. At the time the novel takes place, the early 2000’s, the first women police chief had only been appointed less than 20 years earlier in 1981. Looking at past historical events, one can see that changes such as these usually take more than 20 years to fully change the bias that occurred from before the change.

Despite this, women on the force were only given the opportunity to become constable and actually patrol, as any other male officer would, in 1957. This decision was later struck down only 11 years later, in 1968, when the National Police Board decided that police women should no longer be allowed to complete patrols as this could be dangerous. This decision remained standing until 1971, when it was overturned. The Board had finally come to terms with the idea that all men and women should be allowed to serve equally, regardless of gender, as they could both complete the job adequately. “Today, physical requirements are the same for men and women in cardiovascular fitness, but different in terms of body strength. The minimum requirement is equivalent to average level muscle strength and fitness in men and women” (Dahlgren, pg 85). Sometimes, even despite the equal requirements to join, some men still felt that females did not belong and were too fragile to be of any help.

Anna-Maria Mella is a strong female Inspector on the Swedish police force. An Inspector “serves as second in command of a division, or as a supervisor of a specialized bureau or section in a police department” (Civil Service Commission). Anna-Maria was promoted as the leader of her group over many men. This caused some dislike among some of her colleagues such as Sven-Erik, who was also applying for the job. One thing that really seemed to irk some of the other male members of the force that didn’t work closely with her was the fact that her team seemed to respect her, or as Carl Von Post put it, “She seemed to have her male colleagues on the Investigation squad by the balls, and he couldn’t work out why” (Larsson, pg 14). This is the kind of resentment that many women in a commonly male dominated field face. The male character then goes on to bash her looks and talk about how she is not pretty in any way, at least in his eyes. This shows that he is not basing his dislike on her ability as an Inspector and leader of a team, but rather on the fact that he simply deems her not attractive enough. Later in the novel, it is found out that this character had made a pass at the female Inspector and was shot down. This could easily be the root of his resentment which leads him to lash out against his female co-worker.

When we look at the steps leading up to actually getting into the force, one finds that this is actually quite a difficult process in and of itself. There is an excessive testing process to even apply for the actual Officers Program. The Officer Program itself is 3 years long and is considered to be an actual undergraduate program such as at a college. It is designed to set Officers up for success by challenging them in all areas. “Physical combat value is a military variant of the subject of sport and health. To function effectively in crisis and war, you need to know how the body works, reacts and is affected. You will learn how to develop and train your bandage to cope with stressful conditions. Here you really get to know yourself and test your limits, for example, by doing an exercise for 48 hours without food or sleep” (The Swedish Defense College).

The officers in training clearly have to go through some serious training requirements before they can even be offered a place on the force. They go through not only rigorous physical training but also mental as well. They must complete personality and mental stability tests that make sure that they can mentally cope with the struggles on the job. The officers need to be able to think critically and make connections. All of these requirements were put into place to make sure that Sweden is hiring the best officers for their police force that will be able to do a more than adequate job of protecting their fellow citizens within the country.

In conclusion, one can see that joining the Police Force in Sweden is something that requires intelligence and a lot of hard work and ambition. Rising in its ranks requires even more than that. They only take the most qualified officers who are willing to put in the effort. By looking at all the data presented before, there is now ample background information to understand just what Anna-Maria went through to get her position, thus making it all the more amazing and inspiring. This book portrays many strong female characters and Anna-Maria may just be the strongest of them all. She has clearly faced adversity and has risen above it all to come to a position where her co-workers respect and admire her, something that was uncommon at the time. She beat out multiple men who were also competing for the job and was promoted despite the bias of women in the police force at this time.

Works Cited:

Larsson , Asa. Sun Storm . Delta, 2006.

“Officersprogrammet (OP) – Rekryteringsmyndigheten.” Länk till Startsidan, https://www.rekryteringsmyndigheten.se/aktuella-ansokningar/officersprogrammet/ (Links to an external site.).

“Police Inspector.” IIS Windows Server, https://info.csc.state.nj.us/jobspec/02725.htm (Links to an external site.).

“Swedish Police Authority.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Sept. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Police_Authority (Links to an external site.).