Lynn Peril
Women & Children First, Friday, June 10, 2011 at 7:30pm
Lynn Peril discusses Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making It in the Office.
"Let her be lovely to look at, charming to talk to, spirited and gay," began an ad for a secretarial assistant published in the Chicago Tribune in 1943. Another ad from a 1951 issue of The New York Times barely mentions any required skills, just, "MUST BE EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE." During a time when the success of TV's Mad Men romanticizes and critiques the gender-defined executive environments of the 1960s, Lynn Peril's new book pokes fun at the outlandish history of sexism and income disparity in secretarial jobs from the 1940s to the present. As much as Swimming in the Steno Pool is a fascinating, fun, and profound reminder of how much the workplace has changed, it's also a cautionary tale of how much farther we have to go. (lilithcat)… (more)
"Let her be lovely to look at, charming to talk to, spirited and gay," began an ad for a secretarial assistant published in the Chicago Tribune in 1943. Another ad from a 1951 issue of The New York Times barely mentions any required skills, just, "MUST BE EXTREMELY ATTRACTIVE." During a time when the success of TV's Mad Men romanticizes and critiques the gender-defined executive environments of the 1960s, Lynn Peril's new book pokes fun at the outlandish history of sexism and income disparity in secretarial jobs from the 1940s to the present. As much as Swimming in the Steno Pool is a fascinating, fun, and profound reminder of how much the workplace has changed, it's also a cautionary tale of how much farther we have to go. (lilithcat)… (more)
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