While insufficient recruitment is one barrier to increasing the number of women, harassment is another. The grand jury report notes that while every department has a nondiscrimination policy, the unique work setting of a fire department coupled with the low number of women in fire service presents out-of-the ordinary workplace challenges because they live together and rely on each other during life-or-death situations. These unique features of this workplace make it more challenging for women to report discrimination and/or harassment, the report states.
While Capriles said the vast majority of her colleagues were awesome people and in some cases friends for life, harassment was a persistent issue for female firefighters. In most cases, she said, the person making an inappropriate comment didn t realize that he said something sexist until someone pointed it out to them.