A fair cop
At last, real life has caught up with TV
Tiny woman with a name ripe for satire gets top job bossing great big burly men about! Some headlines are just too unwieldy to reproduce in full, so instead Cressida Dick’s appointment as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has given rise to shockers like “Another Male Bastion Falls”.
I’m reminded of that Del Monte Ketchup advert from the 1950s which shows a glamorous housewife admiring a thrilling new screw-top above the delighted caption: “You mean a woman can open it?”
Yes she can. Literally and metaphorically. And she’s not afraid of shaking the bottle either.
Dick has become the first woman to lead the force in its 188-year history, and that will make a diverting footnote for future generations. But this is 2017 for pity’s sake, when a woman being head of anything (except maybe the Catholic Church, the Freemasons or Muirfield Golf Club) really ought not to be the source of such uproar. In case nobody noticed, we have a female Home Secretary, a female Prime Minister and a female head of state, the Queen. In less rarified circles, women are engaged in both rocket science and brain surgery and (rumour has it) a few of us can even read maps.
Dick, 56, is talented, tenacious and an exemplary police officer but she is not unique in law enforcement. Cast the net wider and there’s Lynne Owens at the head of the National Crime Agency and Sara Thornton, a former chief constable of Thames Valley Police now head of National Police Chiefs Council (formerly the Association of Chief Police Officers).
Even the boss of MI6 – portrayed in the James Bond franchise as M – was a woman. No wonder HM’s secret service is always on the lookout to hire women like DCI Jane Tennison. Sorry, I mean Dame Helen Mirren.
Or do I mean Dame Judi Dench as an impassive M? Juliet Bravo? That’s the thing about fictional female detectives; there are too many to choose from. And best of all, none mumble. Not even for verisimilitude’s sake. You’d never get a misdeed past Sarah Lancashire’s DS Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley – unless perhaps you were DCI Cassie Stuart in the cold case drama Unforgotten. Confusingly, Nicola Walker didn’t just play DCI Stuart in ITV’s Unforgotten but she was also DS Jackie “Stevie” Stevenson in River on the BBC.
At one point both series were being aired at the same time, leading to the cry: “Bring us more maverick lady cops!” because they are infinitely more emotionally gripping to watch than the male of the species.
One of my favourites is No Offence, an outrageous, fast-and-furious romp starring no fewer than four women in the key roles: Joanna Scanlan, Elaine Cassidy, Alexandra Roache and Sarah Solemani. A quartet such as this is arguably a bigger deal in telly than in real life where women are by and large just getting on with their careers. There’s some way to go in the business world but the direction is steady; Lord Mervyn Davies’s target of 30 per cent of women on boards is slowly being met – with more than 26 per cent now in place (a number that has doubled since his initial report in 2012).
Last November a governmentbacked review recommended UK’s biggest companies should have at least 33 per cent of their executive positions filled by women by 2020 and have to declare the number of senior female staff. It makes sense; after all, companies with women on their boards outperform their competitors.
But it is also important to “normalise” women (which is different from a woman) at the top level of all organisations. No, I can’t believe I wrote that either but the truth hurts.
In this respect the Labour Party trails woefully behind 21st-century mores. First it has studiously avoided the election of a woman to head the Opposition; the eminently able Harriet Harman got as far as acting leader but climbed no higher lest she put the frighteners on the Old Guard.
But perhaps even more damningly, in her new memoir-cum-feminist manifesto, Everywoman, Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips asserts that party attitudes towards women remain antediluvian as Jeremy Corbyn’s dress sense. “Pundits ask me often if I would like to be the leader of the Labour Party and at the moment the answer is simply that there is absolutely no chance. I was born a girl child,” she says. “While it’s very nice to have been heralded by some as a candidate, I still think that the party – despite appearances – isn’t ready for a female leader.”
The problem comes from the top, she asserts, with a leadership team looking down on women as ‘‘patronised poor people’’ who need ‘‘the big important men to save them’’.
Given that clever, capable, confident Phillips is regarded as a rising star of the party, I shudder to imagine what indignities have led her to such bleak conclusions.
It’s not just the mothers of daughters who should feel dismay, but the mothers of sons, too; what good does it do anyone if more than half the population is – or feels – discriminated against?
I’m loathe to give the oxygen of publicity to Piers Morgan, but I agree with his observation that the appointment of Cressida Dick will do more to further the feminist cause than Madonna maithering on about equality at a celebrity march.
I hope the day will come – and soon – when a woman landing a pivotal role in policing – politics or any other sphere – will simply be judged by her performance not lionised for her gender.
Lady TV cops are infinitely more emotionally gripping to watch than males