That's my husband. There's no two words about it, Rocco often gets by using brains and not brawn. Of course, there are times when you have to fight: you get called to an assault in progress, a fight erupts, and as cops are wont to say...shit happens.
The thing is...once the NYPD made the decision to split up the Rocco and Ivan Show, for whatever reason, Roc began to get paired with women, which he hadn't really done on a regular basis in the past. Now, let me make one thing clear before I launch into my detailed description of my husband's psyche: there are a fair amount of women police officers within the NYPD Organization. This is no small-town police force. I've often said that Roc's Graduation looked like a meeting of the UN General Assembly, and I kid you not; today's NYPD truly reflects the population of the City of New York.
That said, Roc began getting sent out with a rotation of various female cops, most of whom were shorter than him, smaller than him, and therefore, he felt the need to protect them.
This poses a problem for my husband. As a police officer, he sees the female officer that he's working with as a direct equal. As a gentleman, he deals with an innate sense of having to protect the female as well as himself, especially when a fight ensues. Roc is often confronted by bad men who are much bigger than he is---those who have cultivated the famous prison bodybuilder look---not to mention those who are just taller and happen to be high as a kite. So they come at him, and even as he is protecting himself and his position, he often finds a split second of worry for his 4-foot, 11-inch partner.
I asked him if he worried about Ivan in the same way. He said no. I asked him if it's because he maybe thought these ladies couldn't handle themselves. He said no, that wasn't it either, he said that he knew in his rational mind that they had received the same training as him, and that they were as good if not better than he was at getting control of the situation, but there was that one thing, that niggling fear-based thought, that added to his pile of worries whenever he got into it with a female partner in tow.
Any guys out there dealing with the same thing...or perhaps I should ask...anybody willing to admit it?
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Yep. JR's last posting had the staffing at 50% female. He often found himself stepping in between the bad guys and the female members. I dated a guy in the military for a *brief* "almost don't consider we dated" amount of time. He said the same thing. If he was going into battle with a female beside him he knew that if something happened to her he would drop everything to try to rescue her where as with a male he wouldn't feel the same.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems to be programmed into their nature.
It's instinctive; he's a guy and he can't help it - side effects of testosterone. Kudos to Rocco for admitting it and dealing with it. This could get dangerous if it sneaks up on him unawares, but it sounds like he's ready for it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that I think it's instinctive...he's the type of guy who walks closer to the road side of the sidewalk as well...I swear he's ninety years old sometimes...but I don't mind it!
ReplyDelete:) SCW Stella
I asked HF about this and he said he doesn't feel that way at all. That surprised me, but then again, the female officers that he has worked with aren't exactly feminine. I don't know if that makes a difference for him or not! :)
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