Policing needs to talk more about its men. In likes of policing and other male dominated workplaces ‘Masculinity Contest Cultures’ play out daily. These are environments where men feel pressure to prove toughness, dominance and endurance. Vulnerability and help seeking are viewed as weakness. Unhealthy competition is the outcome. Left unchecked such contests work to undermine a culture sought by the majority. At the extreme suicide and serious forms of abuse will inevitably follow.
Policing has always demanded courage, resilience and composure under pressure. Officers are regularly exposed to trauma, violence, tragedy and human suffering that most people will never experience. Yet beneath the public image of strength sits an uncomfortable reality: many officers struggle in silence with stress, burnout, anxiety, depression and, tragically, suicide.
While operational trauma is often discussed as the primary cause of wellbeing challenges, another issue receives far less attention —, the internal culture of policing itself. In particular, the presence of what researchers call a masculinity contest culture can quietly intensify harm.
A masculinity contest culture exists where individuals feel pressure to constantly prove toughness, dominance, emotional control and endurance. Vulnerability becomes weakness. Asking for help becomes risky. Compassion can be mistaken for fragility. In these environments, status often comes not from healthy leadership, but from appearing invulnerable.
Although these cultures can affect everyone, regardless of gender, they are especially powerful in traditionally masculine professions such as policing, military organisations and emergency services.
The danger is not simply cultural discomfort. It is that these environments can directly undermine wellbeing, reduce psychological safety and increase the risk of long-term mental health harm.
The “Strong Officer” Myth
Many officers enter policing with admirable motivations: service, protection, teamwork and purpose. Yet over time, they can encounter unspoken rules about what a “real officer” should look like.
The idealised image often includes:
- Never showing fear
- Coping without support
- Working through exhaustion
- Hiding emotional distress
- Mocking vulnerability
- Competing for status or credibility
- Treating wellbeing as secondary to operational performance
These messages are rarely written down. They are transmitted through humour, peer pressure, leadership behaviour and everyday interactions. It’s in the air.
An officer who admits they are struggling may fear being labelled, unreliable or weak. Someone seeking counselling may worry about career implications. Even informal comments such as “just toughen up” or “we all deal with it” reinforce the expectation that distress should remain hidden. Over time, emotional suppression becomes normalised.
The irony is striking. Policing depends heavily on teamwork, trust and collective responsibility, yet many officers feel unable to honestly discuss their own wellbeing with teammates.
The Cost of Emotional Suppression
Research consistently shows that chronic emotional suppression is associated with poorer mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, substance misuse and suicidal thinking. In policing, the risks become magnified because officers are already exposed to cumulative trauma. When trauma is combined with a culture discouraging emotional openness, problems can deepen significantly.
Instead of processing difficult experiences, individuals may:
- Internalise distress
- Withdraw socially
- Self-medicate through alcohol or unhealthy coping mechanisms
- Become emotionally detached
- Develop cynicism or hopelessness
- Delay seeking support until crisis point
The phrase “suffer in silence” becomes more than a metaphor. Silence itself becomes part of the organisational culture. Importantly, suicide is rarely caused by one single factor. It is usually the result of multiple interacting pressures: trauma exposure, relationship difficulties, fatigue, identity struggles, organisational stress and feelings of isolation. Masculinity contest cultures can worsen all of these by making connection and help-seeking harder.
When people believe they must always appear strong, they become less likely to reveal when they are no longer coping.
Why These Cultures Persist
Masculinity contest cultures often survive because they can appear functional in the short term. A hard-edged environment may initially look resilient. Officers may push through adversity, maintain discipline and perform effectively under pressure. Leaders may mistakenly interpret emotional silence as strength. But there is a major difference between resilience and suppression.
Healthy resilience involves recovery, adaptability, openness and support. Suppression simply buries distress until it emerges elsewhere, through burnout, aggression, disengagement, family breakdown or mental ill-health.
These cultures also persist because many people fear social consequences for challenging them. Officers may privately disagree with toxic norms yet remain silent because they do not want to appear disloyal or “soft.” This is where active bystandership becomes critically important.
Active Bystandership as Cultural Leadership
Active bystandership is often associated with preventing misconduct or unethical behaviour. However, its real power is much broader. At its heart, active bystandership is about creating environments where people feel responsible for one another.
It encourages individuals to notice harm, recognise risk and take constructive action early.
In the context of policing wellbeing, this can fundamentally reshape culture.
Instead of silence becoming normal, active bystandership creates permission to intervene compassionately and supportively.
It shifts responsibility from: “People should cope alone” to “We look after each other.”
That is a profound cultural change.
Five Ways Active Bystandership Can Challenge Harmful Masculinity Cultures
- It Normalises Speaking Up
Active bystandership teaches officers that noticing concerns and acting on them is part of professional responsibility. This includes wellbeing concerns. Checking in with a struggling colleague, encouraging someone to seek support or challenging dismissive attitudes towards mental health becomes an act of professionalism rather than weakness. Over time, this reduces stigma around vulnerability.
- It Creates Psychological Safety
Psychological safety exists when people feel safe to speak honestly without fear of humiliation or punishment. Masculinity contest cultures damage psychological safety because individuals fear appearing weak.
Active bystandership strengthens it by encouraging respectful intervention, listening and supportive challenge. Teams become more comfortable discussing pressure, mistakes and wellbeing concerns before problems escalate.
This early intervention matters enormously in suicide prevention.
3. It Redefines Strength
One of the most important cultural shifts is redefining what strength actually means.
In unhealthy cultures, strength means emotional concealment.
In healthier cultures, strength includes:
- Self-awareness
- Compassion
- Courageous conversations
- Seeking support early
- Looking after colleagues
- Admitting limitations
Active bystandership reinforces this broader and healthier understanding of professional courage.
4. It Interrupts Harmful Group Norms
Culture is maintained through repeated behaviours. A joke mocking counselling.
A dismissive comment about stress. A leader rewarding presenteeism over recovery.
A colleague ignoring visible distress. These moments may seem small individually, but collectively they shape organisational norms.
Active bystanders interrupt these patterns. They challenge harmful banter, support healthier behaviours and reinforce positive norms through everyday interactions.
Small interventions, repeated consistently, gradually reshape culture.
5. It Builds Collective Responsibility
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of active bystandership is that it moves wellbeing away from being solely an individual issue. Too often, organisations frame resilience as personal responsibility: “Manage your stress.” “Be more resilient.” “Use support services.” While individual coping matters, culture matters too.
Active bystandership recognises that wellbeing is collective. Teams influence mental health. Leaders influence mental health. Peer behaviour influences mental health.
This shared responsibility creates stronger, more connected organisations.
Leadership Matters Most
None of this succeeds without leadership. If senior leaders continue rewarding emotional suppression while talking publicly about wellbeing, officers will notice the contradiction immediately.
Culture is shaped less by policies and more by what leaders tolerate, model and reinforce daily. Leaders who openly discuss wellbeing, encourage support-seeking and actively intervene when harmful behaviours emerge send a powerful message:
“You do not need to suffer silently to belong here.” That message can save lives.
Final Thoughts
Policing will always involve pressure, trauma and emotional challenge. No training programme can remove those realities entirely. But organisations can choose whether officers face those pressures alone or together.
Masculinity contest cultures encourage silence, suppression and isolation. Over time, those conditions can worsen wellbeing and contribute to devastating outcomes, including suicide.
Active bystandership offers something different. It creates cultures where courage includes compassion. Where professionalism includes care. Where strength includes vulnerability. And where officers understand that looking after one another is not secondary to the mission , it is central to it.
In professions built on protecting the public, perhaps the next evolution is ensuring people feel equally responsible for protecting each other.
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