In the United States there are currently no laws or regulations preventing women from being firefighters, police, or paramedics. In fact, most of these organizations are actively seeking to recruit women to meet diversity standards, and fire departments in particular are trying to draw female members. While the police and EMS services have in general become steadily more integrated, fire departments remain predominantly male. In many regions of the US, female firefighters make up less than five-percent of their organizations. This article written in the UK newspaper The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/16/issues-female-firefighters) cite similar issues in European fire departments too.
What causes this continued gender segregation? Some point out that the word fireman implies that it is a male only job, and many girls and young women grow up assuming that the job isn't for them. Another obstacle is the high physical standards set for firefighters. However most women who are set on being firefighters are able to meet them, but many drop out after only a short time on the department. The root issues of these drop outs repeatedly prove to be problems with sexual harassment, the lack of separate facilities and accommodations (which aren't invested in because of the low number of female firefighters, creating a Catch-22 situation), and being sidelined from high risk jobs on the department.
-Conor Cappe
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