Police in England and Wales will pilot project to shift sexism and misogyny

Article here. Excerpt:

'Esther Flanagan has a job on her hands. The behavioural scientist has been tasked with the seemingly impossible: to get police forces across England and Wales to “quit” misogyny and sexism, using similar tactics to those deployed in the major push to reduce smoking in the UK. But she doesn’t seem fazed.

A new initiative designed to combat entrenched sexism and misogyny in policing will use a similar approach to a big government-led push to reduce smoking in England, which resulted in a drastic fall in the number of smokers.

“Different levers were drawn on at the same time to change the same behaviour – and there’s evidence to show that that’s why it worked,” says Flanagan. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to do with sexism and misogyny. We’re going to tap into all of those levers across the system to give ourselves the best chance of shifting that behaviour.”

Officers will also be put through immersive training, where they have to act out how to confront sexism, in the same way they are trained to deal with rowdy protesters.

But the messaging of change will be as important as giving officers the tools to confront sexism, says Flanagan. While the instinct of critics – and many senior officers – may be to blast officers with messages of zero tolerance to sexism, there’s no point if it won’t work, she argues.'