Hacker News Reader

Comment by air7 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting, I've never heard of the preference of female bodyguards. It makes sense and apparently: "These days, the good female PPOs can work all year round while men struggle to find jobs... Such is the demand for women, they get paid more than the men at the moment." [0]

[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-bodyguard-hi...

View on HN

The Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was well known for having female bodyguards, they definitely added theatre to official meetings.

If you write for the Daily Mail then they also become 'virgin' for added sensationalism.

(a.k.a. former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, for the title-too-long-can't-parse crowd.)

Why does a gendered preference make sense in this case?

Female body guards are generally preferred for these reasons:

1. They aren't perceived as such, rather they can be mistaken for a partner, friend, or personal assistant. They are therefore allowed into places where bodyguards normally aren't and the attacker doesn't expect them.

2. Some rich prefer a female to guard their daughter or wife so there are no awkward situations.

Also, 3. "A female PPO tends to be better at conflict resolution rather than making the situation worse." 4. "Those bodyguards, the big guys, actually draw attention to the clients and put them at more stress and risk."

(Quotes from the article above)

I can definitely see this, I've known a handful of police officers in my life and everyone says the big strapping men are constantly getting into fights where the smaller women aren't. I'm sure there's a certain amount of the men being more likely to instigate, but if you're an inmate going into jail for the night you're not going to score any points with the other folks in there by punching a 110# female officer.

Also personal protection side, you have the principal (who may be a woman with a preference not to have a male around at all times) and a family.

A unrelated woman is going to fit more discretely into a family situation then some ex-military/ex-police dude or other tough situations.

In some situations, I would imagine that in the case of a real threat that you'd have a layer of visible "beefy" security for prestige and random crazy person purposes, and a more subtle layer for other threats.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com