Product Description

Seattle is the perfect backdrop to see the full history of women in uniform since it was one of the first cities to hire women in 1912, the first to promote a female to captain in 1946, and one of the first to put women on the street as equal beat cops in 1975. Told through the voices of 50 women on the Seattle Police Department and covers the challenges of sexism, size differences, harassment, crooks embarrassed to be caught by a woman, going undercover to capture an illegal abortionist in the days before Roe v. Wade, moving up the chain of command, why affirmative action isn t such a good idea, how there wasn't a feeling of camaraderie among the women hired.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #336779 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 245 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781933016566
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Review
A DIFFERENT SHADE OF BLUE: HOW WOMEN CHANGED THE FACE OF POLICE WORK by Adam Eisenberg: court commissioner in Seattle Municipal Court and former contributor to The Los Angeles Times chronicles the history of the Seattle police force starting in 1912 along with comments from fifty policewoman; among the subjects are affirmative action, physical training, and survival strategies; such as Marilyn McLaughlin's: A lot of it is attitude...how you walk into the room. --Foreword Magazine, July 2009

As a long-time female police officer who was ultimately one of two female pioneers ever hired, Eisenberg's A Different Shade of Blue definitely struck a chord. I had to keep checking the cover to ensure this book wasn't written by a female officer herself! His in-depth, gritty, and thorough look into the lives of female police officers, coupled with his own background in law enforcement, brings the reader along to shatter the glass ceiling. As a crime writer myself who is currently working on a memoir about my own life as a female police officer, I finished the last page of A Different Shade of Blue feeling somewhat defeated--Eisenberg essentially wrote my memoir for me. Quite simply, he nailed it! A fascinating read! --Stacy Dittrich, former detective, author of Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill and numerous other books, and law enforcement media consultant as seen on CNN, Fox, and E! True Hollywood

About the Author
Adam Eisenberg began his career as an entertainment industry freelance writer, covering extensive behind-the-scenes coverage of such movies as Ghostbusters, The Right Stuff, Terminator and Return of the Jedi, and feature interviews with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Oliver Stone, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise. Mr. Eisenberg spent seven years as a criminal prosecutor for the city of Seattle after graduating from the University of Washington School of Law, where he conducted hundreds of jury and bench trials and successfully argued a case before the Washington state Supreme Court that changed a statewide drunk driving law. Mr. Eisenberg has written freelance articles on homelessness and domestic violence, and produced televised public forums on relationship abuse for the City of Seattle Domestic Violence Council. Adam Eisenberg currently serves as Court Commissioner of the Municipal Court of Seattle, where he presides over criminal and traffic court matters.

Customer Reviews

Informative and Inspiring
I was very impressed with this book. You don't have to be from Seattle nor do you have to work in law enforcement to find this absorbing reading. While reading this book, I was reminded of the late Studs Terkel. Although this book gives a history of female police officers in Seattle, the writing is not pedantic. Here several generations of female police officers discuss their experiences in a way that is both informative and inspiring. Reading them describe the challenges in doing their jobs and getting acceptance from their fellow officers and the public, gives one an appreciation for law enforcement personnel. Kudos to the author for getting these women to speak so freely and for not getting bogged down in minutiae.

For anyone who likes books that celebrate ordinary people handling significant challenges in very admirable ways, this book is a must-read. Reading it is an antidote to the toxic behavior so often glorified in the media these days.

An Important Book on an Important Topic
Just past the midway point in "A Different Shade of Blue," a female police officer recounts in wrenching detail how a colleague, shot in the line of duty, died almost literally in her arms as she and fellow officers labored in vain to revive him. Powerful stuff. But anyone expecting a "Charlie's Angels" or "Cagney & Lacey" version of "How Women Changed the Face of Police Work" will not find it in this book, for Adam Eisenberg's remarkable oral history is no romanticized, babes-with-badges account. Instead, it is a solid piece of first-hand journalism, compiled from open and insightful interviews with dozens of female officers who served the city of Seattle from the 1940s to the present.

Why Seattle? Seattle, it seems, was one of the first cities to hire 'policewomen,' as they were then designated, back in 1912 -- only two years after the very first were hired in Los Angeles. But those early officers of the law were hardly the beat cops of today. They had no uniforms, they had no guns, they were relegated mostly to domestic and child welfare matters. Over the course of decades, however, they gained in responsibility and respect, and gradually were assimilated fully, if not quickly or easily, into this most masculine of career fields, confronting and overcoming countless obstacles, both in the force and within the community. Eisenberg examines this century-long progression in compelling detail.

"A Different Shade of Blue" should be required reading for any woman contemplating a career in law enforcement; but its scope of interest extends well beyond that narrow niche. Never dry or academic, it's a fascinating read -- an important book on an important topic.

Don Shay, author of Endangered Liaisons

Great read, very interesting!
This is a thoughtfully written and interesting book! I enjoyed it thoroughly, and learned much about police work in general as well as the specific issues women faced as they broke new ground in the male-dominated police force. I highly recommend it.