Where it fails

“Not everyone associates it positively!”

The police force is becoming increasingly female, but not at management level. This is the result of the "Working Group for the Advancement of Women" project, which was commissioned by Interior Minister Gerhard Karner in 2022. On the occasion of International Women's Day, we asked two Styrian female officers what the problems are and why so few women want to be at the top of the executive.

The results are sobering. Although the proportion of women in the Styrian executive is steadily increasing - in 2013 around 15 percent of those in uniform were female, and by January 2024 this figure had risen to just under 27 percent - just twelve percent of management positions are held by women.

"Conservative backgrounds"
 But why don't women want to take on leadership roles in the police force? Michaela Kohlweiß from Carinthia, project manager of the "Working Group for the Advancement of Women" and the only female state police director in Austria, has the answers: "The reasons are still conservative in nature."