the dumbing down of the secretarial profession. Why?

There's probably a far more boring explanation, like typos due to posting from an internet phone with cumbersome keyboard.

Hardly any of the medical secretaries I know have PA in their job title, or would refer to themselves as PA rather than secretary.

oh i like this game.the is you drunk sm game
oh most definitely, litres of the stuff. how very well you know me!
p.s what juice is you referring to specifically

Scottishmummy - have you been on the juice today?

met plenty v able female PA,have never encountered a secretary
secretary sounds a bit old fashioned,does anyone employ secretary?
PA fwiw is in right role well paid,pretty pivotal ansd ime respected

piglet - I dunno about 400 years ago, but 500 years ago I would think quite a similar proportion of the population could afford to pay for secretarial services as can today. So it is very interesting that a job that as once very prestigious and skilled - and almost invariably done by men - has, as it has become less skilled, also become more dominated by women.

It's the reverse with computer work - in the 60s and 70s women were thought to be better at working with computers because the job required patience, precision and little intelligence (!).

I don't think the fact that job titles come to mean different things over time is that interesting, but surely the fact that the shift in perception/skill that goes with it is interesting when there's some correlation with gender?

I'm wondering now which jobs were once seen as skilled and respected, and now aren't, where the gender balance hasn't shifted? Teaching used to be more prestigious and more dominated by men .... can anyone think of one that hasn't shifted gender as it became less respected?

(I'm sure there are some btw, just can't immediately think of them).

Secretary was 'the keeper of secrets', therefore male, therefore important. There is research showing decline in status of jobs once women do them eg doc tors in ex Soviet Union. I'll try to find it....

This subject makes me really angry. I've done a lot of secretarial work in the past (I was a graduate who didn't know what I wanted to do) and pretty much always felt disrespected in the role.

I never came across any other male PAs or secretaries, only a few young graduate male temps who were doing non-typing admin work. I think the typing thing has a lot to do with it, going back 20 years and more men never learned to touch type as a professional skill (apart from maybe journalists) and you had to have a minimum typing speed to get a secretarial job. As women were the only people who learned to type, they got the secretarial roles. And then became seen as 'women, doing women's work' as someone else on the thread put it very well.

Doesn't matter what else you end up doing in your role (managing the office, recruiting junior staff, training people etc) the status of the role is stuck as typist and coffee maker, and someone who 'looks after' someone else (usually a man).

I have never worked with a person with the title secretary

I have worked with many PAs and they were very skilled, highly professional and with a level of responsibility that I did not envy one little bit.

I suppose a lot depends on what sector you are in, as has already been discussed.

I have in mind that what a job title used to mean four hundred years ago, when most people couldn't read and write, and hardly anyone could afford to employ a person who could, will not convey the same now.

I have met lots of people who are called secretaries and PAs, but very few, apart from seccys to MDs of large companies, or hospital consultants, with startling skills and no dogsbodying. I have met Company Secretaries, who have an important job in their own right, and are not a helper to someone else.

Secretaries to senior principals are often disliked when they behave as if they have the status of the principal, and the people who have to deal with them, think they shouldn't.

Yes that's true but I'm not sure what that has to do with the thread?

"clerk" used to be a prestigious job title, as well.

It used to be that a secretary could write in particular (specialist) styles no-one else could write, but that is going back centuries. Back then there were professional bodies regulating it.

However, Pendeen, despite your slightly patronizing tone about anesthetists being doctors (yes, I did know that .. it was kinda the point), the fact remains you've advanced a definition then blithely ignored it. If you wish to define 'professional' as non-support workers and those who have a regulating body for their job title, feel free - but the definition you gave doesn't actually say that!

Yes azaello but that's the point - the title itself can mean a host of things - it used to be a prestigious role as evidenced by roles like company secretary and cabinet secretary. If it was never prestigious those roles would be called something else IYSWIM.

Company secretaries are a different thing to a PA type secretary though Sardine - they are one of the officers legally responsible for running a company with similar responsibilities to the directors.

I think the maim change in how secretaries are viewed is down to technology. I am a solicitor and used to have a PA. I very rarely used her as I would usually do day to day correspondence on email/ phone and didn't need to follow it up with letters very often - when I did, I was generally as quick typing myself as dictating and correcting letters or notes.

As email has become the default (and people are expected to be able to deal with emails anywhere), there are fewer people who need the professional and hyper organised type secretary and the secretarial role becomes more that of an office dogsbody.

No, hence my grin

However the rest is true
And my idea about teh 20s / 30s might be
The article seemed to think so anyway

humourous fiction is not a good historical record.

My idea on that is based on reading PG Wodehouse books BTW

The lords and types always have a male secretary.
Thinking about it I bet the royals etc still do.

People like Cabinet Secretary (Sir Humphrey) as well - they were called Secretaries as that was their role and it was and still is extraordinarily high profile and prestigious.

Well it wasn't me who said it in the first place but I was under the impression that secretaries were often male and it was a very good occupation in the 20s / 30s.

On googling to check I found this BRILLIANt article which I think you should all read. I have only got as far as the first paragraph and that has contained enough corkers to keep me going for a while. Like this:

""They tend to use more computer packages and, with their natural desire to take machines apart, they play around with IT more." says McGlaughlin. "Women are more conservative in the office - men will take more risks, and male secretaries are flexible in approach. Women welcome men in the office, and will look after them. It's excellent to have a balance.""

why won't anyone say what dates they're talking about, when secretaries were so respected? It's always in the past, but when?

Nowadays there's a "professional" qualification for everything, and every tom dick and harry thinks he's a "professional".

If you can become a "professional" in say financial services by sitting a couple of piss easy exams then I for one am more than happy to extend that title to people with as much expertise as the average PA.

Company secretaries have professional qualifications.

Just FYI.

In my days "the professions" were law and medicine. And that's it. Or something.

The current application of the word "profession" is a bit random to say the least. In the sense of professionalism, IMO top notch PAs need it in spades as they are often privy to extremely sensitive info. Some of the PAs I have worked with have been the most professionally behaved at all times out of everyone (including the top brass).

Semantics innit.

There is no professional body, for secretaries, they do not have to regulated.
They may do a professional job but it is not a profession.

And I will listen to you HereWeGoLoopyLou.

I don't "get hung up on titles" at all, I am simply engaging in a light-hearted and social website discussion about the OP's definition of her occupation.

You may, of course consider yourself to be a 'professional'. That is your choice.

I do not happen to agree with you.