Female Firefighter Reprimanded For Her Hairstyle Maliciously Complies By Cutting Her Hair To Meet The Men’s Requirements
Not everyone can become a firefighter. These people can’t be afraid of heights or confined spaces. They must function well in a crisis, maintain their body in good shape, and be okay with working long shifts that include weekends and holidays.
However, it’s an exciting, ever-changing, and highly rewarding occupation that offers the warmth of camaraderie and the opportunity to provide critical, life-saving services in a moment of need.
Reddit user Skyyisgood thought she was up to the task. But when attending firefighter school, the woman found herself repeatedly getting into trouble due to dress code violations, more specifically, the hairstyle requirements. Eventually, the situation got so bad, she was even threatened with expulsion.
Luckily, she found a solution. And when everything was said and done, she even presented it to the subreddit ‘Malicious Compliance.’
This female firefighter trainee’s career was threatened due to her repeated women’s dress code violations
Image credits: LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR (not the actual photo)
So she chose to follow the male dress code instead
Image credits: Engin Akyurt (not the actual photo)
Similar problems can persist beyond school as well. As the International Association of Women in Fire & Emergency Service (Women in Fire) points out, some fire departments fall behind others because organizational changes happen slowly and unevenly.
“In most departments, the most senior firefighters — those with more time on the job — were brought up in the old ways and may or may not have adapted well to change,” Women in Fire writes on its website. “This resistance can cause conflict and resentment. Those who represent change, such as women firefighters, sometimes bear the brunt of this resentment.”
If it is a very badly run department, people may get turned off the fire service altogether.
“Women particularly run risks if the department is badly managed and fails to control or punish ugly behavior such as sexual harassment. Working in a hostile environment can harm your mental health or even, in the worst cases, put your physical safety at risk. Discriminatory behavior by co-workers and managers can result in you receiving poor training and bad evaluations that will harm your chances of getting hired elsewhere,” Women in Fire explains. “Not many fire departments like this are still around, but they can be found here and there. Working for one of them is not the best idea, even in the short term.”
This is particularly saddening when you consider how long women have been firefighters, which is for over 200 years.
The first woman firefighter we know of was Molly Williams, who was a slave in New York City and became a member of Oceanus Engine Company #11 in about 1815.
Interestingly, during World War II, many women across the US entered the volunteer fire service to take the place of men who had been called into action. Two military fire departments in Illinois were staffed entirely by women for part of the war.
Now, even the progressive nation of Sweden is facing similar troubles.
In 2017, several national media in Sweden wrote about problems at many fire brigades, often severe problems, which surprised many since the country has gained a name for itself in recent decades as being both progressive and feminist.
In a #metoo-inspired campaign named #LarmetGår (The Call Out), over 100 reports came in in less than one week of sexism, racism, and bullying in Sweden’s fire services.
In one of the reports, for instance, a female firefighter said she had received a banana with a condom over it, left in her locker room on her first day at work. Another woman said she was routinely referred to as “the hole” by one of her officers during gym training, and there was also a female firefighter who was advised by her officers to lock her sleeping room at night because they could not guarantee her safety.
So even though a dress code might not seem like a big thing, it also serves as an example of a broader issue.
People applauded the woman for outplaying her instructor and shared similar stories concerning dress codes
Did I miss something? The headline says "cutting all hair off" while the story says "really cute pixie cut."
A few years ago we got a new uniform policy at work. There have often been differences between train drivers and conductors, the conductors generally have to be more dressy whereas we drivers can be more informal and practical. That makes sense since we often have to fix frozen switches or faults with the train. But this policy decided that men were allowed to wear proper boots in winter and non-dressy shoes in general. Women had to use much less practical shoes (still nothing with open toes or heels, or high heels thankfully). As a female train driver that pissed me off to no end, did they really expect me to wade through a metre of snow for up to several hundred metres to turn off a frozen brake or try to fix a frozen switch in low shoes or little booties? Dress shoes in summer wasn't something I looked forward to either. I made my complaint directly to the policy maker and just got some reply about the companys image back. Thankfully the union stepped in and the policy was changed.
So your hair doesn't fit the rules, which you're aware of and refuse to do anything about until you're fed up so you get a haircut so it does fit the rules? Where is this a win?
Because the OP was being continually hounded by only one instructor, for something she tried to fix but couldn’t help, so decided to do a little malicious compliance to shake that instructor up. Worked, too. Because there suddenly was nothing that a*****e could do to continue to hound the OP. So yeah. Win-Lose. Win for the OP. Lose for the a*****e instructor—-who had merely chosen the OP as her personal whipping boy (or, I guess, whipping girl)..
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This is very stupid. "Complies Maliciously"? All she had to do was follow the rules which she surely knew when she was hired. No reason to go overboard. Simply comply. Which is what we do in Adult World.
So you didn't bother to read it? She TRIED to follow the rules and it didn't work for her hair.
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Working as an engineer for a company that designs and manufactures firefighting equipment... Hair in your mask is a big deal and can compromise the seal. The masks are positive pressure, so it's unlikely that anything will make it into the mask, but it is critical to have a proper fitting mask. All firefighters know this because in order to get fitted for a mask, they need to complete a "particle test" which is very sensitive and has a pass/fail criteria for a reason. There are even extra padding and alteration kits to ensure a good seal. So... This is BS. That's why male firefighters may have mustaches instead of full beards... People talk about putting Vaseline on your beard where the mask seals but I don't know if that's actually safe.
Wow she really showed them. She followed the rules. What a devious one she is.
Good on you, most of family are fire fighters, and I wanted to be one sooo badly, my grandfather said " women don't make good fire fighters"... I was devastated as I wanted to be just like him..I always Chose the boys route..I didn't become a fire fighter..but I did live my dream( in my own way!!)
I dealt with this while in the military. Some women were allowed to have huge buns that caused their hats not to fit properly while other ladies tried their best to keep their hair in regulation while trying to grow it out. Guess who got talked to?
I'm pretty sure this isn't so much Malicious Compliance as it is cutting off your nose to spite your face...
One of her supervisors was a stickler for detail, so instead of the continued friction, she got her hair styled to strictly adhere to the guidelines. She seemed to like her new pixie cut, so no, she didn't cut off her nose (or her hair) to spite her face. Nope. Not even a little. If she had shaved her head bald and hated it then that old saying would apply, but not in this case.
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This was nearly 20 years ago. So I was sent to another country on the job. This is quite a conservative country in the tropics, just ended a civil war and rebuilding. So it was a Saturday, I was buying food. Got a text that some stuff went bonkers, causing all sorts of havoc and I need to get to it now. I was 15 minutes away tops and it was a bank. The guard refused entry stating my shorts and T-shirt are inappropriate. The guy just won't budge. Client bossman calls 30 minutes in, wants to know where the eff I am. Bossman then calls the security post. I could hear the yelling from where I was standing.
GI Jane and Wacky Britney are cutting all hair off. This was just being inconvenienced. As is everyone else when different standards are applied. If a (fill in the blank) is expected to do X level of physical work and groom themselves so safety equipment works but because someone can't, they lower the standards? And as for inequality in attire/dress code, please consider the Olympics committee who requires women's volleyball players to basically wear bikinis.
My 20 year old son has pretty, wavy and below the shoulder hair. People tell me he is handsome and oh that pretty hair. He works, is smart and kind. I get tired of people making comments. He is the same person as when he had a buzz cut which didn’t look good on him. The program/squad ought to be thankful for this female because everybody isn’t tough enough to do this job. I bet she can carry a grown strapping man out of a burning building no matter the length of her hair!!!
So bend the rules because she's a woman? I thought you wanted equal treatment????
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... wasn't.. 'Malicious' though..I was here for some deviously clever justice.. but I got ..a pixie cut? Lol seemed it was just 'compliance'.
The highschool our son attended had a dress code and a very clear hair directive. My husband had hair that almost reached his waist and our son decided that he too wanted to grow his hair. He always tied it back in a ponytail. He was one of only a small handful of boys who was dressed immaculately in full school uniform. He was always extremely polite to the teachers and staff. The principal wrote a paragraph in the weekly newsletter congratulating our son on his appearance and his beautiful manners. They were able to look beyond the hair and see the real young man before them.
There's a BIG difference between high school and a paramilitary government job.
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When I as a female in 1984 began the police academy, much was made about hair. My solution. I immediately went out and got mine cut short. I figured that when my academy was over my hair would grow and I’d be certain after that I could wear my hair in a more flattering manner. I figured no biggie hair grows. Later my hair grew and I wore French braids for a long time.
You followed the rules as you should have. Congrats? If you were a cop you would have realized that having long hair is only a weapon for people you are trying to arrest. That's why cops wear clip on ties, so they can't be dragged/pulled by them. Same with hair.
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How can it be personal if she was not following the rules? She admitted she wasn't following the rules!
Load More Replies... DisgruntledGoblin you are the most bullheaded person I have ever seen. They have a hair regulation. Either put it in a bun or have it cut short. They don't care which one you pick. If her hair was too short for a bun, they don't expect you to make it grow, they expect you to cut it short. You're the biggest moron on this website.
Another fake story. Academy classes are not semesters, this isn't college. You don't get written up in the academy, you are made to do grueling exercises as punishment, especially if the instructors are calling it paramilitary. If you don't comply often enough, you are kicked out of the academy. At that point the fire department can either chose to send you to the next class, or fire you for failing the academy. Geez why do so many people make up stories online? No life? Also, pixie cuts are NEVER cute, EVER. Women may think so, but guys sure don't. Maybe it is if you're a lesbian.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 is used for legality of dress codes. If I’m not mistaken, it’s either Title II or Title VII.
Not really. She tried to break the rules, and when she couldn't, she complied. No story here.
Load More Replies... This is only "malicious compliance" if you take as the basic premise that the only reason hair regulations exist is because the guys who wrote them hate the sight of long hair. It's "obeying safety regulations" otherwise. It's not like it's the days of Annie Lennox creating a stir with her crew cut in the video for "Sweet Dreams." (By the time Pat Benetar went pixie-cut for "Invinceable" from "the Legend of Billie Jean," shortly afterwards, everyone in my age group was "oh, yeah, that looks cute...") I wonder about the woman who "acknowledged" it wasn't a safety issue. Short hair to fit a mask sure as hell IS a safety issue. And it seems funny that the one person who lacked understanding happened to be (I infer) the rare female. Was she acting like a hazer ("I had to do this, so so help me, so do you!") or trying to steer the OP into the challenge.
Former firefighter here. It's long been an axiom in the fire service that when you say "progressive fire department," you've contradicted yourself.
I saw your other comment about everyone thinking they're "special"..."I can't force my hair to instantly grow longer" "YOU THINK YOUR SPECIAL??? MAKE YOUR HAIR GROW THREE FEET LONGER INSTANTANEOUSLY LIKE EVERYONE ELSE DOES" I'm pretty YOU are the "special" one here, Argyle Bargle.
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Yes they can, they just, can't leave the fire house ( in a mission, that os ) in one ( nor can women for that matter )
Load More Replies... Did I miss something? The headline says "cutting all hair off" while the story says "really cute pixie cut."
A few years ago we got a new uniform policy at work. There have often been differences between train drivers and conductors, the conductors generally have to be more dressy whereas we drivers can be more informal and practical. That makes sense since we often have to fix frozen switches or faults with the train. But this policy decided that men were allowed to wear proper boots in winter and non-dressy shoes in general. Women had to use much less practical shoes (still nothing with open toes or heels, or high heels thankfully). As a female train driver that pissed me off to no end, did they really expect me to wade through a metre of snow for up to several hundred metres to turn off a frozen brake or try to fix a frozen switch in low shoes or little booties? Dress shoes in summer wasn't something I looked forward to either. I made my complaint directly to the policy maker and just got some reply about the companys image back. Thankfully the union stepped in and the policy was changed.
So your hair doesn't fit the rules, which you're aware of and refuse to do anything about until you're fed up so you get a haircut so it does fit the rules? Where is this a win?
Because the OP was being continually hounded by only one instructor, for something she tried to fix but couldn’t help, so decided to do a little malicious compliance to shake that instructor up. Worked, too. Because there suddenly was nothing that a*****e could do to continue to hound the OP. So yeah. Win-Lose. Win for the OP. Lose for the a*****e instructor—-who had merely chosen the OP as her personal whipping boy (or, I guess, whipping girl)..
Load More Replies... This is very stupid. "Complies Maliciously"? All she had to do was follow the rules which she surely knew when she was hired. No reason to go overboard. Simply comply. Which is what we do in Adult World.
So you didn't bother to read it? She TRIED to follow the rules and it didn't work for her hair.
Load More Replies... Working as an engineer for a company that designs and manufactures firefighting equipment... Hair in your mask is a big deal and can compromise the seal. The masks are positive pressure, so it's unlikely that anything will make it into the mask, but it is critical to have a proper fitting mask. All firefighters know this because in order to get fitted for a mask, they need to complete a "particle test" which is very sensitive and has a pass/fail criteria for a reason. There are even extra padding and alteration kits to ensure a good seal. So... This is BS. That's why male firefighters may have mustaches instead of full beards... People talk about putting Vaseline on your beard where the mask seals but I don't know if that's actually safe.
Wow she really showed them. She followed the rules. What a devious one she is.
Good on you, most of family are fire fighters, and I wanted to be one sooo badly, my grandfather said " women don't make good fire fighters"... I was devastated as I wanted to be just like him..I always Chose the boys route..I didn't become a fire fighter..but I did live my dream( in my own way!!)
I dealt with this while in the military. Some women were allowed to have huge buns that caused their hats not to fit properly while other ladies tried their best to keep their hair in regulation while trying to grow it out. Guess who got talked to?
I'm pretty sure this isn't so much Malicious Compliance as it is cutting off your nose to spite your face...
One of her supervisors was a stickler for detail, so instead of the continued friction, she got her hair styled to strictly adhere to the guidelines. She seemed to like her new pixie cut, so no, she didn't cut off her nose (or her hair) to spite her face. Nope. Not even a little. If she had shaved her head bald and hated it then that old saying would apply, but not in this case.
Load More Replies... This was nearly 20 years ago. So I was sent to another country on the job. This is quite a conservative country in the tropics, just ended a civil war and rebuilding. So it was a Saturday, I was buying food. Got a text that some stuff went bonkers, causing all sorts of havoc and I need to get to it now. I was 15 minutes away tops and it was a bank. The guard refused entry stating my shorts and T-shirt are inappropriate. The guy just won't budge. Client bossman calls 30 minutes in, wants to know where the eff I am. Bossman then calls the security post. I could hear the yelling from where I was standing.
GI Jane and Wacky Britney are cutting all hair off. This was just being inconvenienced. As is everyone else when different standards are applied. If a (fill in the blank) is expected to do X level of physical work and groom themselves so safety equipment works but because someone can't, they lower the standards? And as for inequality in attire/dress code, please consider the Olympics committee who requires women's volleyball players to basically wear bikinis.
My 20 year old son has pretty, wavy and below the shoulder hair. People tell me he is handsome and oh that pretty hair. He works, is smart and kind. I get tired of people making comments. He is the same person as when he had a buzz cut which didn’t look good on him. The program/squad ought to be thankful for this female because everybody isn’t tough enough to do this job. I bet she can carry a grown strapping man out of a burning building no matter the length of her hair!!!
So bend the rules because she's a woman? I thought you wanted equal treatment????
Load More Replies... ... wasn't.. 'Malicious' though..I was here for some deviously clever justice.. but I got ..a pixie cut? Lol seemed it was just 'compliance'.
The highschool our son attended had a dress code and a very clear hair directive. My husband had hair that almost reached his waist and our son decided that he too wanted to grow his hair. He always tied it back in a ponytail. He was one of only a small handful of boys who was dressed immaculately in full school uniform. He was always extremely polite to the teachers and staff. The principal wrote a paragraph in the weekly newsletter congratulating our son on his appearance and his beautiful manners. They were able to look beyond the hair and see the real young man before them.
There's a BIG difference between high school and a paramilitary government job.
Load More Replies... When I as a female in 1984 began the police academy, much was made about hair. My solution. I immediately went out and got mine cut short. I figured that when my academy was over my hair would grow and I’d be certain after that I could wear my hair in a more flattering manner. I figured no biggie hair grows. Later my hair grew and I wore French braids for a long time.
You followed the rules as you should have. Congrats? If you were a cop you would have realized that having long hair is only a weapon for people you are trying to arrest. That's why cops wear clip on ties, so they can't be dragged/pulled by them. Same with hair.
Load More Replies... How can it be personal if she was not following the rules? She admitted she wasn't following the rules!
Load More Replies... DisgruntledGoblin you are the most bullheaded person I have ever seen. They have a hair regulation. Either put it in a bun or have it cut short. They don't care which one you pick. If her hair was too short for a bun, they don't expect you to make it grow, they expect you to cut it short. You're the biggest moron on this website.
Another fake story. Academy classes are not semesters, this isn't college. You don't get written up in the academy, you are made to do grueling exercises as punishment, especially if the instructors are calling it paramilitary. If you don't comply often enough, you are kicked out of the academy. At that point the fire department can either chose to send you to the next class, or fire you for failing the academy. Geez why do so many people make up stories online? No life? Also, pixie cuts are NEVER cute, EVER. Women may think so, but guys sure don't. Maybe it is if you're a lesbian.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 is used for legality of dress codes. If I’m not mistaken, it’s either Title II or Title VII.
Not really. She tried to break the rules, and when she couldn't, she complied. No story here.
Load More Replies... This is only "malicious compliance" if you take as the basic premise that the only reason hair regulations exist is because the guys who wrote them hate the sight of long hair. It's "obeying safety regulations" otherwise. It's not like it's the days of Annie Lennox creating a stir with her crew cut in the video for "Sweet Dreams." (By the time Pat Benetar went pixie-cut for "Invinceable" from "the Legend of Billie Jean," shortly afterwards, everyone in my age group was "oh, yeah, that looks cute...") I wonder about the woman who "acknowledged" it wasn't a safety issue. Short hair to fit a mask sure as hell IS a safety issue. And it seems funny that the one person who lacked understanding happened to be (I infer) the rare female. Was she acting like a hazer ("I had to do this, so so help me, so do you!") or trying to steer the OP into the challenge.
Former firefighter here. It's long been an axiom in the fire service that when you say "progressive fire department," you've contradicted yourself.
I saw your other comment about everyone thinking they're "special"..."I can't force my hair to instantly grow longer" "YOU THINK YOUR SPECIAL??? MAKE YOUR HAIR GROW THREE FEET LONGER INSTANTANEOUSLY LIKE EVERYONE ELSE DOES" I'm pretty YOU are the "special" one here, Argyle Bargle.
Load More Replies... Yes they can, they just, can't leave the fire house ( in a mission, that os ) in one ( nor can women for that matter )
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