katrap40 ([info]katrap40) wrote,
@ 2007-04-25 23:30:00
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Entry tags:democracy now, gender gap, secretary's day

Where have I been?
Where have I been? In bed, in my head, in cancerland, in radioland ...

My recent pieces on KPFA Women's Magazine:

Monday April 23: National Secretaries' Week, a time of lunches, flowers and umbrellas embossed with company logo. Some support staff appreciate the appreciation, but others say they do not want to go out to lunch with the boss. Clerical workers Kate Raphael and Rosemary Lenihan talk to from many of their coworkers about the meaning of this corporate holiday. http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=19871

Monday April 9: The progressive media was once the province of a white male elite, but we've come a long way baby. Or have we? An analysis of Democracy Now's 2006 coverage reveals that men were interviewed almost three times as often as women, and a recent issue of the Nation magazine featured no women writers. Today on the Women's Magazine we discuss these issues with Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, and Katha Pollitt, long-time columnist for The Nation magazine. http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=19634

The print version of my analysis of Democracy Now!'s gender gap is online at http://home.mindspring.com/~katrap/LAGAI/UVApril2007.htm#demonow

I have really taken good health for granted. All that's changing. I'm getting accustomed to huge energy spikes and drains, good days and bad days, all the things that I never really understood in my friends with chronic illness. I don't expect my illness to be chronic, just a temporary glitch in an otherwise healthy life. But it's a learning experience.

Now I'm feeling some better, so getting read to start writing again. Except it's kind of ... I don't know, daunting. I keep finding reasons not to do it.


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[info]sadie_sabot
2007-04-26 05:31 pm UTC (link)
oooh, I'm gonna listen to those shows...

I never know if I should be offended or relived or what that my boss never acknowledges admninstrative professionlas day. I mean, I keep his calendar, so I know it's in there (preprinted), but at the same time, apparently tehre is a "voss' day" and I certainly don't want to be expected to do anything for him on that day...every day is boss day, right?

I'm thinking of you girl, and sending good health vibes your way.

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[info]sadie_sabot
2007-04-26 06:14 pm UTC (link)
I just listened to the secretaries day thing, that was cool. Never thought I'd hear a whole show about my proffession.

Hey, do you have any thoughts on wether or not admin assistant/secretary types are working class? Does it depend on income level or what?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)
working class
[info]katrap40
2007-04-30 08:26 pm UTC (link)
Well I definitely think the jobs are working class. There's pretty much no standard by which they are not - do not require post-secondary education, don't have decision-making authority, not supervisorial or managerial, do not set our own schedules. Also i was thinking about it, and I think maybe some people go into secretarial work thinking that they will move up in the hierarchy, but I bet less than 1% ever do. I mean, at my work, for instance, you can maybe become a secretarial supervisor or go into HR or marketing, but I think I have seen 2 or 3 secretaries make a move like that, out of several hundred.

But of course not all of us doing this work are from working class backgrounds - I'm not, for instance. So I would not call myself working class because I went to college with help from my parents. But that is not unique to pink collar work, it's also true of people in construction, restaurant work, etc. Insofar as it's more true of office workers, I think that has more to do with opportunity; many middle-class women get temp office jobs during college, and so when we graduate and don't know how else to make a living, that opportunity is there. While a lot of blue-collar jobs are more passed down through families, like Sasha, for instance, got into longshore work through her uncle, who is in the union.

At least when I was in school, it was not so uncommon for guys to get construction jobs in the summer, and some of them went that way when they graduated as well. But probably less. Again, probably because people believe that administrative work will be a springboard to something "better" and maybe in some areas that's true, but in law firms, it's so stratified, that it used to be the policy that someone who had been a legal secretary at one firm who then went to law school would definitely NOT be hired as an attorney by that firm. It was felt that it would promote inappropriate social relations and they were quite explicit about that. On the other hand, a few of the secretaries at my job have law degrees, or have even been lawyers, and didn't like it. But once you make that move, you cannot go back.

Sorry for rambling on. But it's an interesting question that I don't get asked much.

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