Performing Gender at Work

Many of us take the presence of policewomen on patrol and in investigative roles for granted. Realistic dramas and comedies in the movies and on television show women officers performing the same duties as men on the force. This visibility tells us nothing about the hostility and controversy that have beset police women since they were first hired by police departments in the 1910's. Author Janis Appier traces the origins of women in police work, explaining how pioneer policewomen's struggles to gain secure footholds in big city police departments ironically helped to make modern policework one of the most male dominated occupations in the United States.

There was plenty of genuine discontent in Britain at the tail end of the 1970s, and it had little to do with bin strikes or dark rumours about overflowing morgues. In the world of popular music, the most liberating after-effect of the Sex Pistols was that anyone with something to say now felt they could make a 7” single. WINTER OF DISCONTENT is the sound of truly DIY music, made by people who maybe hadn’t written a song until a day or two before they went into the studio. It’s spontaneous and genuinely free in a way the British music scene has rarely been before or since.

Eurythmics were one of the most successful duos to emerge in the early '80s. Where most of their British synth pop contemporaries disappeared from the charts as soon as new wave faded away in 1984, Eurythmics continued to have hits until the end of the decade, making vocalist Annie Lennox a star in her own right, as well as establishing instrumentalist Dave Stewart as a successful, savvy producer and songwriter. Originally, the duo channelled the eerily detached sound of electronic synthesizer music into pop songs driven by robotic beats. By the mid-'80s, singles like "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" had made the group into international stars, and the group had begun to experiment with their sound, delving into soul and R&B. Collection includes: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (1983); Touch (1983); 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother) (1984); Be Yourself Tonight (1985); Revenge (1986); Savage (1987); We Too Are One (1989).