The out-front recruitment effort is just the tip of the iceberg. Its long-range success rests on work that must be done elsewhere in the department. If your recruiters are to spend their time making it known that your department wants women to work there as firefighters, you as chief must make sure that's really true before they ever begin. This checklist covers some of the preparatory steps fire department managers can take to make the recruitment of women firefighters more effective, and to help insure the retention of women who join the department. What is clear from this list is that most of the issues that arise when a fire department becomes gender-integrated should be considered long before a targeted recruitment of women ever begins.
People are unlikely to be motivated to enter a workplace in which they are unwelcome.
Women firefighters already on the job may be reluctant to join in a recruitment effort and may even actively discourage other women from applying for the job, since they know the problems women in the department face. It is both practically and ethically difficult to recruit women into such an environment. It is a waste of effort, or worse, to recruit women before the above issues are addressed. A Manager's Handbook on Women in Firerfighting. It may be ordered free of charge from the USFA's Web site.