Here is a working woman from the 1980s. . .her shiny desk is oddly void. a non-digital clock sits on the wall (something leftover from the factory, perhaps). there's no computer, no ipod, no video phone. . .she operates with a landline, a rolodex, a can of pens and real paper with actual text printed on it. . .perhaps only the coffee is a consistency with the work place of now. . .
I have a bit of a fetish for images of working women this is a favorite clipping of mine. she seems so independent, so ingrained in her professionalism. . .the family photos loom guiltily behind.
this reminds me of a strange piece of podcast I heard just the other day. . . this report called those born into the web world "native." those who remember life before the web are "immigrants." putting those of a certain age and socio-economic rank on the outside of our shared homeland. I wonder. . .did they call those who lived before television immigrants? I think it is foolish not to honor those who bore precious witness to the transition of reality with the web, and also those still just discovering it. . .to call them immigrants is a strange dis. . . but this term may not stick. it could be the insecurity of the reporters, themselves immigrants by this definition, their own uneasiness with this new place revealed. . .
(yet another example of the endless reportage on our new culture, always accompanied with clever words. . .there's something about the year 9 of any decade. . .it's the year our identity kicks in. this year, it's hitting us how 15 years with the internet has altered our lives. publications are filled with pop culture anthropologists joining in the awakening.)
8 comments:
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hey Karen
you might enjoy reading
Darren Wershler-Henry's book, "The Iron Whim : a fragmented history of typewriting" -- itsa good read, i think it's still only available in hardcover, i sat down at the bookstore & read it, but eventually i need to getta copy for myself -- i know you've done work w/ typewriters, so this history may be of interest to you, esp. w/ the working woman angle -- here's a couple of reviews about the book:
Not only is the typewriter indicative of our dependence on and blindness to technology, it also reflected and defined gender roles in the workplace for decades. Wershler-Henry explains that "the Industrial Revolution brought a massive amount of paperwork memos, bills of lading, invoices for the goods that are circulating. No longer were rows of clerks on stools sufficient. Women started to enter to workforce in a very complex way."
"Typewriting is associated with the suffragette movement and the independent woman, but on the other hand, this figure is either alien and cold or a new sex-toy for the male office workers of the world. Originally, the typewriter sales companies sold the typist with the typewriter: she was part of the package." This contradictory packaging of the typewriter with the typist in the case of the suffragette, caused G.K. Chesterton to quip that "women refused to be dictated to and went out and became stenographers."
type cast :
Wershler-Henry follows the fortunes of the typewriter into the twentieth century, with special emphasis on the role of women in the story. In the beginning, few people imagined that anyone would compose at the machine. The user of the typewriter would be an amanuensis—in other words, a secretary—taking dictation from another person. Accordingly, in the early days the word “typewriter” was used to mean not just the machine but the person plying it. That person, the Remington folks assumed, would be a woman. (The flowers printed on the casing of the early models were to make the mechanism seem friendly to the weaker sex.) Remington’s prediction was correct. It was often as typists that women poured into the professional workforce at the turn of the century. By 1910, according to the Census Bureau, eighty-one per cent of professional typists were female. Guardians of the social order warned that this development would have baleful consequences. It would unsex women; it would spell the end of the American family. They were right, in part. Together with other social changes, the availability of typing jobs no doubt did weaken the family’s hold on women. As for unsexing them, the effect was the opposite. Wershler-Henry documents the entry of the “typewriter girl” into the iconography of early-twentieth-century pornography. He also gives us illustrations, from the so-called Tijuana Bibles, dirty comic books produced in Mexico, starting in the nineteen-thirties, for the American market. In one panel, a three-piece-suited executive, staring at his secretary’s thigh, says, “Miss Higby, are you ready for—ahem!—er—dictation?” Such a situation did not lead swiftly to Miss Higby’s empowerment, but for a woman to have a job, any job, outside the home was part of the humble beginnings of twentieth-century feminism.
the typing life
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amazing a whole book on the history of typewriting. . .
some day I"mma going to make a sci-fi graphic novel (maybe it could be an online serial type thing). . . I'm going to have at least one main character that is a secretary.
this is inspiring, thanks troy, kt
ooh, make it someday soon!
i envision a secetary who works for an important world leader/corporate executive & she makes changes to the dictation, thus changing the direction of world events inna radical way!
you are prescient.
one character I have already developed is a geologist/graphic photographer (female) who works on the moon. in a shorter fiction I performed a few years ago, her job was to transmit a report to the "eclipse corporation." eventually she discovers highly conscious frozen water crystals and her field work becomes political. the drama is how she edits (redacts, actually) the official report, putting a great deal of blame on an innocent robot.
but my (still very vague) secretary character is involved with another character. . .the man with the bird business. he is not a preservationist, nor is he idealist at all, but a venture capitalist who is at the right place at the right time . before all the wild birds disappeared on the planet, he collected bird recordings world wide. he now owns and operates the largest library of bird recordings, which he sells at great profit. others have made him into a mythological environmentalist.
on the moon, there is a leisure class of bored rich people who live in a moon colony -- a fantasy gated community. the architecture is very white. everyone lives in fantastic white galleries. the empty spaces are then transformed by interior designers, architects and artists who project and install fashionable environments (visuals, weather, smells & sounds. . .even in some cases live actions) for wealthy patrons. at the moment of my fiction, forests are in high fashion. . .bird sounds are in demand. the bird man is very busy. . .his secretary(s) is a professional servant, organizing the aural ghosts of a planet that's been abandoned.
. . .some day I'll organize it into an actual piece. . . all in good time.
-kt
damn, that sounds great.
i'm a big Philip K. Dick-head & yer story reminds me of the complex strains he present'd.
there haven't been enough female sci-fi writers & the perspective would be refreshing.
i love "eclipse corporation", goodstuff -- & the idle leisure class occupied w/ simulated reconstruction (comfort) instead of a more healthy evolutionary adaptation -- perhaps even the birdsongs are fake simulations & the birdman has developed them w/ an elaborate audio software he created, maybe when one hears the birdsongs they are getting subliminal messages which active an unknown neural circuit, the birdman thinks he has programm'd his birdsong to placate the leisure class & make them desire more, like a drug, but one of his secretaries (a radical humanist) has re-programm'd the birdsong without his knowledge & the song activates a neural circuit for the listener to have profound empathy, thus by the popularity of the birdsong the leisure class is transform'd into a mutualist collective which overthrows the dominion of a crapitalist regime, maybe joining up with the ghosts as their exposure to the weird neuro-songs has the side-effect of opening an interdimensional world which overlays known reality, the realm of ghosts, and the ghosts thru this fissure are given a more active role in known human reality...
hmmm, you got me off in moonshadow birdland.
= )
your project sounds highly interesting & already sounds fairly well form'd -- keep us updated to its progress!
here's an interesting article about Phil Dick:
Perky Pat
જ૭ૐઊગઆૐ૪
well. . .this year's new years resolution is to begin a draft in graphic novel form. . .on actual paper. but part of me wants to do stage photoshoots and make an audio fiction out of it.
part of me wants to form a team of writers for this. . .in which case, you're hired. (I have been thinking about birdsong designers. . .kind of like the geologist character, who acts subversively deep in the subtexts, where no one's watching)
so much to do. . .but, actually you would make a good birdman. . .glasses and all. maybe when the time is right, we can create a costume and take a few photos for the book.
. . .all in good time.
I need to read more sci-fi. . . I kind of prefer it in movie form, tho.
-kt
sounds good to me.
i esp. like the idea of a photographic graphic novel.
i've been m.i.a. up here in N. Georgia, trying to save sum loot for gettin' a joint back 'round town.
( space )
whenever ya wanna collab or whatever, gimme a holler,
my email =
troylloyd@gmail.com
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