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THE SECRETARIAL GHETTO

The Secretarial Ghetto, Mary Kathleen Benet

McGraw-Hill

39% of all employed women are office workers, many of whom realize that clerical work is actually blue-collar work performed in a white collar. The work is monotonous, menial, notoriously low paid and, since the invention of the typewriter in 1873, traditionally female. Recognized as such, office work still seems attractive to women who otherwise would be forced to seek factory work; but for many others who had hoped to find the path upward from the pool proletariat, it is a disillusioning, discouraging dead-end.

In her appropriately entitled book The Secretarial Ghetto, Mary Kathleen Benet clearly depicts the roles, games and attitudes of the whole dismal office scene. She has utilized many diversified sources in annotating her study of the hundreds of managers and office workers whom she canvassed, and reduced individual boss-secretary relationships to insultingly accurate generalities. Although the secretary will be heartened to learn that whatever form of oppression she is experiencing is probably not unique, Benet's book makes equally enfuriating reading for both the office and non-office woman.

In the American educational system, women have not been trained to expect much; it is not surprising that so many women are content with the man-as-servant, woman-as-slave office situation. Indeed, the very existence of a feminist in the office makes it more advantageous for the others to stick to the traditional role. The

Tips on How to be an Effective Secretary, by Elmer L. Winter, executive of Manpower, Inc.

SHOW CONSIDERATION for OTHERS BE PLEASANT

BE HUMBLE

BE APPRECIATIVE

BE ATTRACTIVE

new college graduate will be totally naive to the system and the unliberated attitudes with which she must daily contend. Even though a woman and a man may both start work on the same level, she quickly finds that "she is standing on the ground floor and he is standing on the escalator."

In her chapter "Substitute Wives," Benet outlines the animosity between the parallel servant roles of a man's secretary and his wife. The housewife jealously desires what she imagines to be the exciting office atmosphere, while the secretary covets the security of a house in the suburbs. Though the home and the office are worlds apart, the women's functions  ́are both essentially "supplementary and cus'todial rather than productive," preparing for and cleaning up after the man's activities.

Office politics and sexual politics are such sim-

ilar questions of power that "all these patternsthe undervaluing of female labor, the sharp differentiation of sex roles, the status gradations based on age and sex-are the mirror-image of family life." Unfortunately for the secretary,

a "girl" is more easily fired than is an "old lady" divorced, so she had better smile on while conducting her office housekeeping.

How can a woman office worker kick the sexual/servant stereotype and gain the recognition and status she deserves? According to Benet, she can job-hop until her wide range of experience qualifies her for a better opportunity:

enlist the assistance of an influential (lecherous?) man; try the Helen Gurley Brown success formula of individual opportunism; or be independent and "sell her skill and originality on the open market rather than climbing the usual I corporate ladder." Token women who are promoted within the system, however, generally want no comparisons made between themselves and the other office workers, and such promotions serve to keep the "girls" hopefully pounding those keys.

It looks as if it's going to be every woman for herself until office workers organize to demand their rights. "For women to become powerful enough to change their status at the office, they will have to, somehow, become more powerful, so that they can make threats with real meaning... So far, the system has been able to brush off women's threats, because they have never been presented in a unified way."

Although unionization is more acceptable to typists and transcriptionists in large pools and communications centers than to personal secretaries whose jobs depend on individual rapport with and loyalty to their bosses, it is essential that all office workers stop identifying with management and recognize that they are, in fact, labor. They must decide whether or not the false prestige of a glamorous office is

MANAGEMENTŹ

TER

adequate substitute for reasonable wages, and choose between importance-by-association with men and recognition for their own talents.

"Women cannot expect to win justice at work by depending on men's recognition of the rightness of their cause. They must find a way to bring it about no matter who objects."

Enrage yourself into action by reading The Secretarial Ghetto. "None of the possibi lities of sophisticated office sabotage have been tried...'

15

TEN MOST FREQUENT MALE COMMENTS on a STUDY of SECRETARIES

1. (leer) Must be a fascinating subject!

Women are sex objects first, workers second.

2. My secretary knows my job better than I do.

So why doesn't she have his title and pay?

3. My secretary likes her job.

As compared to what? If she didn't like her job, she'd be replaced.

4. Wish I could get a job anywhere I liked, the way these girls can.

"He wouldn't really trade places with his secretary, his wife, or anyone on welfare."

5. Girls come here asking about the executive training program, and they can't even type.

Would he ask a man if he could type? The only profes sional category in which individuals do their own typing is newspaper reporting.

6. I've got all the junior executives I need, but even for $155 a week, I can't find a secretary.

That's a lot of money for shitwork-why aren't the wretches grateful?

7. A girl who isn't likely to get married and leave wouldn't fit in around here.

The turnover of cute young things which he enjoys is, in fact, caused by boredom. "When a younger girl is hired, the first girl loses the sexual attention that made the boredom bearable and so she leaves." He could try giving promotions and see how fast the turnover stops.

8. Who needs someone who glares at you every time you ask her to do some typing?

Since smiling is a job requirement, it's easy to say "she's too soft and nice to be a really tough manager."

9. I really ought to hire an older woman.

But "not until he's old enough and successful enough to have his ego massaged by prestige instead of by girls." 10. Someone's got to do it.

What exactly is it that he does?

An Office Workers Conference will be held on September 29, offering films, workshops and a panel of speakers representing the Cleveland Council of Union Women and various local unions. Your input is welcomed at the open planning meeting to be held July 22 at Trinity Cathedral at 7 pm. For further details, call the Council of Union Women at 932-3361 or N.O.W. at 932-3361

DECISION

MAKING DO NOT

ENTER

page3/ What She Wants/ August 1974