IN these days of so-called equal opportunities there are some occupations where there is still a yawning chasm between men and women. PAULINE HAWKINS meets a former police superintendent aiming for fairness in the force.

BARRIERS need to be broken down if the traditional, stereotypical image of police officers is to be swept away in the 21st century.

And who better to act as the new broom than a straight-talking Lancastrian woman who reached a senior rank in the force and is, in retirement, taking up the cudgels to fight for a fairer force.

Irene Divine was a superintendent in Greater Manchester, a force where at that rank the ratio of women to men is about one in 20. She retired in February as sub-divisional commander at Chadderton.

Now 49, she worked at Rawtenstall Library for four years after leaving school and joined the police force at the age of 20. She lives in Rawtenstall with her husband Bernard, who retired last year as regional manager for the RSPCA in the North West.

Her role as national co-ordinator for the British Association of Women Police is a newly-created post. The association, founded in 1987, is open to men as well as women and aims to develop professional and social contacts between officers and support staff both nationally and internationally.

It was set up as a voluntary organisation and run by police officers in their own time, but was recently awarded Government funding which helped finance Irene's part-time post, allowing her to seek out new members and represent the association on outside groups.

Irene said: "It is an organisation that is concerned about women's issues in the police service and men should be concerned about these issues too. There is a small percentage of men who are members. Because it is an association of women police some men make assumptions they are not eligible to join and participate.

"Women function differently but I do not think they are particularly different in what they want to achieve -- more how they go about it."

With women making up 44 per cent of the working population, it is of great concern to Irene that only 16 per cent of the police force in England and Wales are women.

Irene has contributed to a document called The Gender Agenda, which was launched in Birmingham last week. Its aims are for the police force to show that it values women officers, for the forces to achieve a gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation balance across the rank structure and to develop an understanding of the competing demands in having a successful police career while bringing up a family.

Irene said: "A group of us got together to identify the problems faced by women in the police service. One of the things that has been thrown back at us in the past is: "What do women want?" So we put this document together which covers the issues around gender, recruitment and retention."

The first topic covered by the document is the traditional "brawn not brains" image of the police officer which the association feels is a barrier to progress being made in encouraging women into the force.

"You don't see many women in the traffic police. Why? Probably because men have told them not to apply. Up until you have about 20 years' service you are told what is good for you and if you try and buck the system you become 'Miss Uppity'. So for a quiet life there is a tendency to acquiesce," she said.

And it's not just women who suffer because of long-held beliefs and rules. An example of "bad practice" quoted in the document is that firearms were being bought that were too big for officers with small hands to hold. This led to the belief that women (who already suffer in society by being told by men that they can't read maps, park the car and wire a plug) couldn't fire a gun properly. But the same problems were being encountered by male officers with small hands and now some forces, including Greater Manchester and Essex, are buying firearms with different grip sizes.

Irene, who was elected lady captain at Rossendale Golf Club in February and appointed president of the Soroptimists in Oldham in April, is striving against the "double jeopardy" faced by women officers who are gay or in an ethnic minority group and who feel isolated in their job.

She also feels the media could do more to portray police as "diverse and able" rather than "male and tough". Some newspapers, she felt, seemed more interested in Lancashire Chief Constable Pauline Clare's preferred perfume than her policing objectives.

Irene has also spoken to the officer on whom Helen Mirren's high-ranking detective Jane Tennyson was based in ITV's Prime Suspect series. The officer felt she had to drink and smoke to gain credibility with colleagues and Irene believes some women who achieve high rank in the force have fought so hard to get there under procedures and policies laid down by men that they are in danger of losing their femininity.

Irene now hopes her own experiences in the force can help make others' paths smoother.

"From my point of view as national co-ordinator and from the association's point of view we are now seen as an organisation to be consulted on most issues in the police service.

"The aim is to do ourselves out of a job but I doubt that will ever happen on the basis that a lot of the biases are socialised into us long before joining the police service."