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Women That Left Their Mark Throughout History

Khalid Elhassan August 4, 2020 34 min

38. Fighting Through the Barriers

Sydney in the 1920s. Sydney Living Museums

When signing up as a detective, Lillian Armfield was required to sign an indemnity, agreeing that the police department was neither responsible nor liable for her safety and welfare. This, despite the fact that she was sent to track down some of Australia’s most dangerous criminals, armed with nothing more than a handbag.

Unlike her male colleagues, Lillian was not only denied a weapon and uniform, she was also denied overtime and compensation for ancillary expenses. She was also discriminated against in terms of compensation for workplace injuries suffered on the job. The final insult came at the end of her three-decade career as a police officer when, again unlike her male colleagues, she was not given a pension. None of the hurdles stopped her from being one of the country’s most badass cops.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.