Fire department should include women

Since the Glendale Fire Department feels the need to fill their bloated staff with approximately 15 new employees, it is time for there to be some real reform in that department, which has no females on staff. Cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego have many women on board who are part of the fire department and its management staff.

The fire department hides behind the usual scapegoat idea of “upper body strength” even though we have women in our military who are fighting all over the world. Yet those who head up the Glendale Fire Department, supported by Glendale staff and council, cannot do the same. As long as the city of Glendale is able to find other cities with the same bigotry and sexism to exclude women, they will do it.

There are few fires in the city of Glendale and most of the calls are for medical issues. Yet “upper body strength” will be held to the bosom of the overpaid elite males as long as possible.

I have been hearing from the fire chief for years that the matter is “complicated.” Right, Rosa Parks should have known her place and gone to the back of the bus or better yet walked home so as to not have upset the male power structure who continually want women to “keep in their place.”

Carole Weling
Glendale