By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer
Why aren’t more guys in the fire service expressing their disgust with the way that their brother firefighters are treating
women firefighters in their departments?
Back in April 2015 I posted this blog, If You’re a Male Firefighter You Should Be Mad, Too, which is just one of several pieces that I’ve authored over the past couple of years on issues like this. But too often, I feel like the Tom Hanks character in the movie Castaway (except I don’t have a Wilson to talk to).
I think too many guys are comfortable in their own department thinking:
- “Everything is good here.”
- “We treat everyone the same.”
- “We’ve got no problems.”
A case of “ignorance being bliss,” perhaps?
See Related: Is your ambulance partner safe at home?
Getting Everyone Involved in Finding Solutions
Recently, I shared the above post on a new Facebook Group that I’d been invited to join, Change Agents for a Modern Fire Service, a closed group (By invitation only) that currently has 113 members. I’m one of five guys in that 113. (I’m pretty sure that I received an invite because I’m a fire service guy who “gets it”).
Now I think that groups like this on social media are a good thing. They can provide an avenue for the exchange of information and ideas that can eventually lead to solutions to problems. But for any group to be successful at developing solutions to problems, there has to be an exchange of ideas and that exchange has to include a variety of inputs. And those inputs have to be diverse.
Otherwise, groupthink can take over the group
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or 
conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.
Groupthink has been identified as the causative factor in debacles from the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion to the ill-advised launch and subsequent explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. More recently was the U.S. invasion of Iraq based on the premise that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Begin with the end in mind
We’ll likely never change the fire service culture to one that is more diverse and inclusive of non-white and non-male members without first getting more representation from those groups “at the table.” That’s not an easy task, but one thing we must do is start much earlier to recruit firefighters as employees or volunteers. Take a look:
“So theoretically these candidates all come to the table with the same qualifications, so why do we keep hiring the same type of person that becomes the “silent nice guy. “Well for one, they are not on-boarded and made to feel valued and able to speak up. For another, they are hired to fit into the “pack” that’s already there. So if you have a culture of people that turn into quiet nice guys, why are we still hiring the same type of people?”
“Which leads me to my next point, the fire service is sick. The symptoms are all over the place: leadership crisis; EMS worker suicides; sexual harassment and rape; xenophobia; and homophobia. What is the common denominator here? We are hiring “cookie cutter” people to fit in because it’s easier to do that then to it is to work through the growing pains of becoming diverse and inclusive.”—Change Agents for a Modern Fire Service group member
We can change the culture in the fire service, but not through solutions like policy or procedure or training or lawsuits. The change must come from the “majority stakeholders” in the fire service: Men. Men must take responsibility and ownership for the problems we face in the fire service. And right now, they must also take responsibility for seeking and implementing the solutions.
It must start at the lowest levels of every organization. It must include 
men of all ranks—from the newest firefighter to the chief—taking a good hard look at how they engage with those who are different from them. And then they have to take an equally hard look at how their colleagues treat others. But most importantly, men have to be willing to change the status quo.
Anything less and we’ll still be talking about these issues ten years from now. Can we really afford that?
Rob, you are a guy that gets it because you are willing to put your name to your words.
One thing I would like to add as a thought/question/or starting point for a discussion is; can we change the culture as it stands today, or should we be looking to the future and educate those that will come after us. I am absolutely not diminishing the work of the exceptional leaders that are out there today, from men to women, visible minorities and the LGBTQ communities, and anyone I may have missed only by my pure ignorance, because it is the ground swell of work they are doing that will re align the direction of the freighter we call the fire service.
What I am asking is, should we become more active in youth groups, sports teams, become mentors and the guiding posts of what we would like to see happening today.
As and example, I have two boys 10 & 12 and I do my best having very open conversations with them. The most recent was with my 10 year old on transgendered people and gender equality. Good bedtime subjects, btw. My boys have been in Scouts (Canada) since they were 5 (Beavers) this year I became a Scouter (leader) then because I have a sliver of time in my schedule I applied to be on a working group to write policy for diversity and inclusiveness for Scouts Canada and was accepted. I love doing this work and the research because I want to know how all of the pieces fit together, and let me tell you there are a lot of pieces. So the theory behind me doing this work is to educate those coming behind us, because I think it is my duty to reach back and bring those behind me with me.
When they asked me in the interview what the group means to me, it was easy to answer, because I draw from my own work experience in a fire hall. It means that no person (youth or adult) goes to a meeting or a camp (firehall) and is ever reminded of what makes them different, (personally I like extra-ordinary over different).
So what does everyone think? Should we focus solely on the here and now, or should we look to the future, you know, the little people that get crumbs and mud all over the back seat of your clean car?
Lydia
Congratulations, Lydia Wilcox! You just wrote your first guest blog for Talking “Shop” 4 Fire and EMS! I’ll be in touch.
The past no longer exists, because it is in the past.
The future does not exist, because it has yet to come into being.
All we have is today – Now.
It is impossible to pass into the future without living (and taking action) Now.
We find ourselves in this sick state because humanity has for centuries spent all its time focused on looking to the future while living in the past.
If people start focusing on their way of being and acting while living fully in Today, then certainly there is hope for positive change in the future.
Best to leave the past in the past. Holding onto it will only contaminate the future.
The past is there because we can learn from it, and learn to not make the same ill mistakes over again today and in how to change the future for the better. We dont have to live in it but we must understand it. History has an uncanny way of repeating itself.
That is exactly right, history for centuries has been repeating itself.
Therefore what does that tell you of our (humanity’s) ability to learn from the past??
We do not learn from it because we keep living in it.
Apparently humans do have the ability and capability to change and learn from the past as many do. I think what is lacking is the willingness to alter behaviors and the work that it takes to learn from history. Living in the now is a good practice but the ability of humans to do that has also shown great failure. Perhaps the issue is in the programming and not the computer
Well put and yes, we must lead the children to the world of inclusion we envision, but we must change our institutional systems and beliefs and stop the cycle.
Hi Rob,
I think you get it.
Little will change until the majority stakeholders, men, recognise the failings in a system that they allow to continue.
The phenomenon that is fire service culture is held together for a number of positive reasons that allow closely knit teams to respond to emergencies in a way that helps both the public and keeps firefighters safe at the same time. People who join the team need to fit-in to this arrangement and they do this by learning from the team how to act and behave and to prove they can be trusted in the operational environment. They can also add to the team’s ability by bringing new ideas and testing some established procedures. This later part is not always so easy but good teams will take on board new ideas where they can see an operational advantage in doing so.
However, when someone new challenges social behaviours – for instance, the way new firefighters are shown ‘the way things are done around here’ – they are likely to be sanctioned because the group believe it is essential to keep the way they organise intact above all else.
Group think has a part to play here. On the positive side it means that firefighter get to know and expect that people ‘have their back’ – that they will be supported when the going gets tough.
However, this is not only an operational matter. We will all probably have experienced a time when a colleague says something that we don’t actually agree with. Particularly when this is challenged by someone outside the group – the group can then line up to support their colleague. Mostly this is not particularly important. And if it gets a colleague out of a difficult spot, say with a manager, then we probably accept it was necessary to support them because ‘that’s what friends are for’.
However, there is a negative side – this happens when people say something that many in the group recognise as wrong and which has a significant bearing on something to do with inclusion. So say for example a colleague says something that is vaguely sexist, racist or homophobic. At these times many if not everyone in the group may well feel uncomfortable with the statement, yet they laugh nervously because they believe it is the right thing to do. And so the conversation moves on and those that were uncomfortable with the statement let it go because ‘it wasn’t a great deal anyway’. And so gradually those people begin to accept behaviour and understandings that they would not permit in their own homes. In this way existing norms are accepted, approved and fitted-in with.
However, what if someone in the group is a member of a minority or seriously uncomfortable with what has been said? These people have a choice – they probably believe that they risk exclusion if they make a challenge. Consequently they can remain silent, internalise what has been said and by default fit-in with the behaviour.
For some though, particularly if they are a minority, this experience can result in them feeling threatened and unwanted – they may even start to believe they are actually ‘less than’ their ‘colleagues’ taking part in the conversation. And, in the event that fitting-in is more important to them than their own self-belief, they can laugh with the others.
This is how socialisation happens and people feel harassed – it almost appears innocent and harmless and there is always the argument that we need to fit-in at the station in order to prove that we can be trusted to fit-in with team norms at an operational incident.
When it is laid down in black and white here in my writing, it is easy to see just how problematic this behaviour is. However, the process is not simple. It involves a whole set of dynamics around masculinity and power that I am not going to go into right now. What is important to take from what I have written, is that this acceptance is not necessary. It is also easy to overcome – particularly if you are one of the people who are established in the group.
You do not have to just accept statements that you consider wrong because it is part of the way ‘that we do things around here’. You can challenge them. A gentle word at the right moment to suggest that you don’t agree can stop a difficult conversation. This does not have to be negative. Rather than resulting in the group turning on you, it can in fact bring in the affect of group think to support your challenge. And so then it is no big deal: a lesson is learnt.
As a result of men making small challenges like this, the group’s behaviour (their culture) can gradually change. Because, as Rob’s writing suggests, it is men who have the power here. We may think it is a laugh. It may be the way ‘things are done around here’, but it doesn’t mean we cannot change. In fact we have to ask, why would we want to pick on member’s of our team?
If we ask this question and believe that it is wrong to exclude people in our team through the careless use of language, then the next time it happens gently challenge it. You will probably be surprised just how many people may support you.
And importantly here, if you are the person who is challenged. Rather than standing your ground and defending your words. Stop digging – recognise that we can all make mistakes and say ‘sorry I didn’t mean it to be taken that way’.
I leave you with this final thought: We condone what we don’t condemn.
Dave Baigent
Fantastic article! I get it since I have lived it. Sometimes I think the best cure for discrimination is to be discriminated against and have to live with the way you treat others. If you look at the fire service just as you look at the industry of religious leaders, they reflect society as a whole, both the good qualities and the bad. I still think that it is the society itself that needs to evolve in the acceptance and value of women the globe over and that includes its biggest institutions and systems.