the dumbing down of the secretarial profession. Why?

I think milly is right. A few years back some survey showed that 75% of people thought of themselves as middle class. That blatantly can't be true. Marx would turn in his grave to see how the masses are appeased by relatively little material wealth.

There used to be the definition that middle class meant owning the means if production e.g. A factory owner would be mc, their secretary would be working class.

Then economics changed and a bigger group of 'professionals' grew up. These people all had degrees and/or years of training. So they became accepted as mc, but we're seen as separated from the wc class as often they ran/owned a company (partners in a legal firm, head teachers etc).

Part of the problem is that there's a vast difference between a typist Kind of secretary and a running the company one, but the same word is used. If you're a company secretary, you have power and influence.

Fwiw in the US the word administrator is more like the old secretary. The admin staff at a school are the principal and people who run it

I don't think being honest is belittling people in fact, as several have pointed out, it is actually dishonest to encourage someone to believe they are in a profession when they are quite plainly not.

The particular point made above about graduates and expectations is an example of this.

I think that's true Milly. I think lots of people, young or not, don't have much sense of how much certain jobs actually pay and make huge assumptions based on the class associations of those jobs. Eg. my SIL's BIL is in the police and SIL's dad initially made a fuss about what a bad, low-paid job it was. He assumes my brother is better off because he works for a charity and that sounds middle-class, but he's really off-mark about how much BIL and my brother each earn.

Obviously it depends on how you define secretary. I think we are talking about general secretarial work here not being the secretary of state.

I was talking about this to my Grandma over Christmas. She left school at 16 and became a secretary in the late thirties. She could speak three languages and had excellent English skills. She got paid two and a half times what her friends who went in to shop work were paid as her starting salary.

The difference between then and now was that she was from a working class family, married a working class man and considered secretarial work to be a working class job, which was how it was widely perceived at the time.

I think the issue now is that many people consider that if they have a degree (and in my experience most graduates in offices are not more highly skilled than my grandmother) or even post 16 education, you work in any kind of office environment and your wage is twice that of a shop worker you are in some sense 'middle class' and belong to the same social and economic group as dentists and vets rather than the same group as postmen and hairdressers.

I am not sure how that massive change in class consciousness has come about, but it seems to be to our detriment and yet is an idea promoted by both this government and the last one. It covers up the lack of social mobility and gives people a false impression of the benefits of further and higher education and the level of income and status people will receive as a consequence of certain jobs.

Being a secretary is never going to be equivalent to being a doctor. There may be some overlap between the responsibility and pay of a top PA and the most junior doctor, but the same is not going to be true when looking at the average secretary and the average doctor. I think young women need to be aware of this when looking at careers.

Didn't the guy with the lovely job of wiping the king's arse used to fill that role? Families used to pay huge bribes to get that job for some youngster in their clan

Ah, I've just read up and seen JuliaScurr's post "Secretary was 'the keeper of secrets', therefore male, therefore important." That explains Secretary of State et al then.

Interesting thread, although I'm sorry I couldn't read every post in detail.

I've worked as a secretary in the past (legal field) and found it to be better paid than most public sector jobs, probably because alongside the lawyer and the partner, the secretary is a key part of the machinery that helps a client to win his/her case. As a legal secretary to two lawyers in a London firm I know I was part of a team that won new clients, and kept existing ones. I was integral to bringing in income to the firm. A computer or un-skilled person (including social skills) couldn't do the job. It's no meaningless comment when CEOs say they could not do their job without their secretary or PA.

I've not so much got a point to make as an observation that there are positive associations with the word 'secretary'.

Eg. Look at the job title of the leading figurehead of the world:
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Also the head of many international organisations, is usually a 'Secretary' something. The second most important job in the USA is 'Secretary of State'. And in the field of diplomacy, most diplomats' job titles are 'First Secretary, Second Secretary, Third Secretary... of trade/policy/defence etc etc'

Barring Ms. Rodham-Clinton most of those Secretarial jobs are held by men. If most secretaries in government or international organisations are men and most secretaries in the commercial world are women, why does the term 'secretary' lose respect? Can we blame films which portray it as a stockings-and-suspenders job which doesn't require much skill or IQ?

Pendeen - fair enough, quote me the bit of the definition that matches up to what you claim. As far as I can see, it isn't there. You're just trying to make your ideas fit a definition, which is kinda pointless isn't it?

I'm well aware there are plenty of definitions of 'professional', and maybe with more effort you could have cited one that actually fits in with what you want to say (which this one does not). But what would be the point? Obviously we all have differing ideas of what it is to be a professional and could take issue with each other's definitions. Where my problem is, is that you seem to think your view (which involves belittling people in this profession) should have more authority because it's backed up by a definition you pulled off the net. My issue is simply that you didn't actually read the definition before you assumed it backed up your point!

Pendeen you do see to have a little bit of a chip on the old shoulder there.

If your son/brother/nephew was a footballer or makeup artist would you also decry them the "title" professional. They are called professional footballers and professional makeup artists. Is it not all a turn of phrase and nobody (apart from you) really seems that bothered.

I don't agree.

The definition is fairly clear but is only one of many that I could have quoted. You are free to look up others.

The OP is quite definitely not part of a profession, merely an occupation which requires certain basic skils.

When I started work in 1980 I was the desk secretary on a trading floor. I could type quite fast without making too many mistakes, I could draft a nice letter, I could remove the platten from the typewriter to give it a good clean, type telex tap accurately, write shorthand and transcribe it, make tea, and was a dab hand at working out manually columns and tabs for huge tables at the the end of the the day with the desk position. I was also good at tea, fending off sexist jokes, collecting dry cleaning and putting on the odd bet. Even then it was quite hard to get girls who could do it apparently.

I knew my days were numbered when the first word processor came in and it did all the working out for you. Luckily they knew I was a grafter and when I said I wanted to move on they promoted me to the syndicate desk and then I became a Eurobond Salesman.

When I retired to be a SAHM I didn't think I would go back to work again but I did and started at the bottom in something else. Now share a secretary with three others and HE is fantastic. Has all the computer literacy that I don't and does the most amazing things with Excel reports and pivot charts and makes a cracking cuppa for meetings.

What about law? Used to be seen as a bit of a dirty profession, and definitely for employed people rather than any upper classes. The status of that has gone up and there are more women now

I don't think so.

If you read it again, you'll see I am simply pointing out that many well-respected jobs involve support work. You seem to feel this debars people from calling themselves 'professional, although the definition you advance doesn't agree.

I do feel this might be a central issue - I think people like to pretend all 'women's work' is basically about helping. But all jobs are interdependent to a degree.

How is that patronising?

From your example(s) it appeared that you did not understand the background to your examples. How was I to know of what what you are, or are not aware?

I was attempting to help.

Pah at 90 wpm shorthand. I did 120 in medical terminology!

I'd guess it's a little bit of both, but you're right, it's probably more often the job loses status then women start getting those jobs.

I think as well as the actual proportion of men and women in a job, it matters how people perceive the gender split, and that's not always the same thing. And it matters whether a job has its dominant gender represented at all levels, or only the lower ones - teaching is the obvious one there.

One questions whether women enter professions and then they get downgraded in respect and status because women are doing them, or is it that technology and changes in society downgrade the job, and then the men and institutions let women into what were previously jobs protected directly or indirectly through discrimination (guilds, trades unions, office culture whatever).

For example vicars and priests used to be very influential, but had become much less so, before they let women in.

Grocers (often male) gave way to superrmarket cashiers (mainly
women).

Teaching I think did loose status as education became universal rather than something for the elite, and at then it let more women into the profession.

fingers of fire, gosh thats fast
a PA not taking minutes, how bizzare

I worked with a woman who was a secretary who had 90 words per minute shorthand and 85 words per minute typing speed and she was amazing.

When she retired she was replaced by a 30K a year PA straight from the City who was totally useless, she couldn't even run the most basic diary and refused any jobs that she deemed 'menial'.

The old 'secretary' commanded respect because she was willing to muck in with everyone and I know the boss missed her like hell when dealing with his new 'PA' who listed the duties she was willing to do and those she wouldn't. Like taking the minutes of a meeting for example.

ok, thank you!

grape juice?love it the stuff is packed with superfruits me and kids drink it

I think that the role has become more skilled, but more people have access to those skills. The number of people who can read/type/use computers etc is vastly greater than even 50 years ago,

I know the issue has come up before though, that as women get more involved on a job/profession then it's status and pay decline.

With teaching though I'd argue that it never was that highly respected

squiffymummy

I is referring to grape juice Squiffymummy Scottishmummy

Hope you is having fun