Women from all jurisdictions found it difficult to be hired by police organizations, and once hired, they experienced continued resistance from male police officers. Researchers and commentators from diverse cultural traditions have reported on the dominance of masculine values in policing and beliefs about its inherent unsuitability as a job for a woman. Policewomen in Eastern European countries apparently experience less discrimination and harassment than their counterparts in continental Europe, the British Isles, and the United States. This may be because the role and working status of women in former communist regimes might have resulted in greater equality, which had to be won by political lobbying and legislation in the West. An alternative explanation could be that there is greater awareness of harassment of women in the West and more tools for identifying and measuring such harassment. The introduction of equal opportunities law, such as that in the West, can resurrect male police officers' resistance to women officers and result in renewed attempts by male officers to exclude their female colleagues from the full range of duties and employment benefits. As women move out of their segregated status of specialist roles and departments, the informal relationships between men and women at work may deteriorate as women increasingly assume previously exclusive male roles and responsibilities. As policing in Eastern Europe develops equal opportunities policies, the cycle of resistance, discrimination, harassment, and then reform may occur in Eastern Europe as it happened in the West.