As communities around the world mark International Women's Day, Maria Keen's nearly 34-year career in policing stands as a reminder of the barriers women have faced in entering male-dominated professions.
When Keen joined the Ottawa Police Service in 1992, she was only 21 years old and stepping into a workplace where she stood out immediately as a Filipina officer in a field with little representation.
"When I was a rookie on my shift, I was the only non-white female on the platoon, and they made me feel it, they made me know it," Keen said.
Keen, who retired on Jan. 30 with the Ottawa Police Service, said she quickly realized that her role carried a larger weight. As one of the few racialized women in the service at the time, she was representing the Filipino community and women more broadly.
"There was a lot of racism. There was a lot of discrimination of being a female, she said. "Remember, I'm racialized, and I'm also a female, and in a male-dominated job."
Born in the Philippines and brought to Canada when she was almost two years old, Keen grew up in Toronto and Scarborough before moving to Ottawa to attend Carleton University. She studied law and sociology after initially enroling in commerce, a path she said reflected the traditional expectations in many Filipino households.
"My dad was an accountant, my mom was a nurse," Keen said. "That was the traditional cultural Filipino thing."
Her career path changed after an opportunity to work with the police during the summer of her final year at Carleton.
"I never wanted to be a cop," she said. "But I really enjoyed the work in policing."
She was hired in the summer of 1992 and went on to serve in multiple roles throughout her career, including patrol, undercover work, school policing, community policing, recruiting, and later as a frontline sergeant.
During her time in recruiting, Keen helped hire what she described as the largest diverse class in the history of the Ottawa Police Service.
But her early years in the job were not easy. Keen said she had to constantly prove herself in a culture where women were rare.
“The adjustment was tough. I’m not gonna lie,” she said. “They weren’t very welcoming of me.”
At the time, she said many officers questioned whether she could physically handle the job or whether she belonged in the profession.
“I was also young,” she said. “They wanted to know I could handle myself in a physical situation.”
Keen also encountered moments that reflected how little awareness there was about Filipino identity at the time. In one early incident, colleagues suggested she attend a Chinese community event, despite her explaining that she was Filipino.
“That’s when I kind of realized, hmm, I really got to get involved with the Filipino community in Ottawa,” she said.
From then on, Keen made it a priority to build connections between the Ottawa Police Service and the Filipino community. She regularly attended community events and worked with Filipino organizations in the city.
Those efforts became even more significant when she later learned she had broken several barriers within the police service.
“I was the first Filipino in Ottawa, well, first racialized female in Ottawa but also Filipino, and first female to be hired in Canada,” she said. “I only learned that maybe 10 years ago, and I was actually kind of shocked that there wasn’t more.”
Recognizing that milestone reinforced her desire to help others follow similar paths.
“When I was in recruiting, I really wanted to add more Filipinos and really recruit them and show them that policing was a really good choice as a profession,” she said.
Today, Keen said there are now more Filipino officers in the Ottawa Police Service, something she sees as a sign of progress.
“I used to go to the Philippine Independence Day by myself, and now there’s a bunch of us,” she said.
Throughout her career, Keen also focused on mentoring younger women in policing, something she said she wished she had when she first joined.
“My goal was always to mentor and empower these young women, because I never had that,” she said.
She said the culture within policing has changed significantly over the past three decades. Nearly half of the Ottawa Police Service is now female, and Keen says younger officers treat women in the force more as equals.
“It wasn’t like that for me,” she said.
For Keen, the most meaningful part of policing was the relationships she built with the community.
“When people come up to me and say, ‘Hey, you were my officer when I was in high school,’ and they remembered me,” she said. “You realize the impact you made on somebody’s life.”
Those moments, she said, remind her that even small actions can leave lasting impressions.
Looking back, Keen says her career evolved far beyond what she expected when she first joined the force as a young woman.
“I started off this 21 year old girl from Toronto who just went into a job that I thought was going to be exciting,” she said. “To becoming a role model, a mentor, a great representative for our Filipino community.”
Now adjusting to retirement, Keen is teaching part-time at Algonquin College and plans to spend more time travelling, including longer visits to the Philippines.
But the impact of her career continues through the communities she served and the barriers she helped break for women and Filipinos in policing.
