Have you been part of an Incident Management Team (IMT) where women outnumbered men? What roles do women perform in your IMT? How many female incident controllers are in your emergency service organisation? Have you seen a fire crew that was majority female? Were any of them wearing lipstick? What would you think of them if they were?You don’t have to look hard within the emergency services sector to see a disparity in the representation of men and women, particularly in leadership roles. What are the blockers to women becoming leaders in emergency management? Is it a generational hangover from a previous era? Are the barriers within women, themselves? Some barriers experienced include working conditions and family commitments; a perceived lack of physical and mental ability to do the job; an ingrained culture and subconscious bias. Research shows that women tend toward masculine behaviours when working in a male dominated workforce. We are hardwired to adjust our behaviours to fit into communities. The perception of needing to be "one of the boys" can prevent girls from entering or remaining in the emergency sector long enough to become leaders. 

As we move into new directions in emergency management we need to support our people and challenge our current culture to ensure that the next generation of leaders has representation of women on par with men. How do we really encourage diversity in the workforce and empower women to be authentic, be themselves and still fit in a male dominated culture? This presentation will discuss how we remove barriers to empower women to become quality leaders. Let’s change the culture now so that in 2025 we have an emergency management culture where women, even those who like to wear lipstick, can be operational leaders in the emergency services sector.