Corporate story-telling: the buxomly secretary, a pyrrhic victory of the male mind

Stand. J. Mgmt, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 175-191, 1994 Copyfight 0 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0956-5221/94 $7.00 + 0.00

0281-7527(94)E0014-8

CORPORATE STORY-TELLING: THE BUXOMLY SECRETARY, A PYRRHIC VICTORY OF THE MALE MIND SABINE HELMERS

and REGINA BUHR

Social Science Centre. Berlin Abstract-A story about a secretary, a mechanic, and a typewriter as told in a company provides the startingpoint for this paper. With the story in mind we then discuss two lines of thought which arise from it: (1) Gender, stereotypes and unity, (2) Gender, stereotypes, and technology. Gender is an important common denominator and gives a feeling of ‘us-ness’ in the heterogeneous world that a large company represents. At the organizational level and at the general societal level, male unity can bridge cultural heterogeneity and hierarchical distances. Stereotyped images of women affect the way male R and D workers think and, ultimately, also the way technical artifacts are designed. We intend to describe how gender images become embedded in machines, and to indicate some of the negative results of this as manifest in the development of the typewriter. Our conclusion is that superior corporate male thinking and behaviour do not pay off in the long run. Key words: Corporate corporate culture.

story-telling,

gender relationship,

technology

development,

R and D, typewriter,

INTRODUCTION A story about a secretary, a mechanic, and a typewriter in a company provides the starting-point for this paper. With the story in mind we then discuss two lines of thought which arise out from it: (1) Gender, stereotypes and unity, (2) Gender, stereotypes and technology. Gender is an important common denominator and gives a feeling of “us-ness” in the heterogeneous world that a large company represents. At the organizational level and the general societal level, male unity can bridge cultural heterogeneity and hierarchical distances. The formal and informal barriers which can be found internally in the daily routines of any large, complex business organization, for instance between R and D, production, distribution, marketing etc. can be overcome up to a point by the uniting effect of the sense of belonging to a “superior” fraternity of men. Men tell “funny” stories about women, and can laugh about “typical female stupidity”. Stereotyped images of women affect the way male R and D workers think and, ultimately, the way technical artifacts are designed. We will indicate below how gender images become embedded in machines, and we will demonstrate some of the negative results of this, as manifest in the development of the typewriter. In the interests of user-oriented technical products, we hope to direct more attention to the cultural and social aspects involved in the process of making technical artifacts. 175

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1. THE STORY OF THE SECRETARY

AND THE MECHANIC

As part of a study of technical research and development in the field of writing we - an anthropologist and a social economist-carried out a field study in a fairly large firm in Germany which employs about 2,000 people and is mainly engaged in the production of typewriters. Our main goal was to collect data on the cultural dimensions of R and D. We spent three weeks in the factory, conducting formal and informal interviews and observations with technical employees and others. During our stay there, several staff members, all of them men, mentioned the following story. The Tactful Typewriter Mechanic The new secretary had called in the mechanic many times because her electric typewriter kept making spaces where they didn’t belong. After trying unsuccessfully to find the cause, the mechanic decided to observe the secretary at work for a while. He soon discovered the problem. The girl, generously endowed with feminine attractions, kept hitting the space key involuntarily every time she bent forward. The mechanic showed that he was capable of dealing with this rather delicate situation. He found an excuse to send her out of the office and raised her swivel-chair four centimetres. Since then she has had no problems with her machine and has nothing but praise for the excellent mechanic.

At first we did not pay much attention to this silly tale, but later we became curious because the story has in fact a lot to tell us.

2. ABOUT THE CONTEXT The story was told to us when R and D staff were describing the variety of problems that they meet with in their work. This “amusing” anecdote was meant to demonstrate the crazy, unpredictable users-problems that “no normal human being” (man) could foresee. The employees who told the story always did so (with a more or less obvious grin), as if it had taken place the day before. But, interestingly enough, when we were studying written documents on our subject, we discovered the source of the tale. It was printed in an in-house publication for typewriter dealers on 2 June 1963 (from which the above quotation was taken). It did not happen in the company we studied; the Vienna trade journal Wiener Biiromaschinenrundschau was given as the source. The fact that the story had been taken over from another source and presented as an immediate personal experience as much as thirty years later, gives it particular significance. The story was so attractive that it had been somehow internalized. It was not told because it had just happened. Daily events in the company are usually a topic for conversation for a while, and are then forgotten as new events overshadow them. If historical selection is regarded as a measure of the importance of a question, then stories with a long tradition must be regarded as more important than others which are quickly forgotten. In the above example, an old story is constantly transformed into a new one.

3. CORPORATE

STORY-TELLING,

SYMBOL, AND MEANING

Narration plays an important part in daily corporate life. Incidents in the company as well as other private or external happenings are included. The first of these are the most interesting to a

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study of corporate cultural characteristics, because they allow us to identify collective and individual attitudes and presentation patterns associated with the company, the work and the world outside. Stories can be highly symbolic, and by trying to understand the messages, values and wishes expressed and transmitted in an important story, we can perhaps come to understand something of the cultural context. Collective stories provide knowledge of a culture, of shared thoughts and feelings and of social relationships. By entering the field, by observing, listening and participating, anthropologists try to grasp the “native’s point of view”. Culture is expressed in language and jargon, in interactive “talk’, in commonly shared “stories” (Mitroff and Kilmann, 1976; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1993; Gabriel, 1992). The understanding acquired from an analysis of the story of the mechanic and the secretary, confirms the value of corporate story-telling as a source for researchers studying corporate culture in the holistic tradition of anthropology. Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges (1989: 12) has suggested the hologram as a metaphor for the culture of organizations. The whole is contained in every part. The hologram represents reality but, depending on the perspective, the image changes. “There is no standpoint that gives the ‘true’ picture of it.” Using a holistic, ideational approach, and taking a woman’s point of view, we will study the story of the secretary and the mechanic as a pars pro toto.

4. ANALYSIS:

THE ASSUMED

OPPOSITION

BETWEEN

THE BODY AND MIND

We asked ourselves why the 30-year-old joke was told. Was it only because it was supposed to be funny? The important question then is, who is being laughed at? The masculine image of women is primarily physical; the female body is seen in opposition to the masculine mind. Technical artifacts are then regarded as products of masculine intelligence. In the story of the buxom secretary, the female breasts are an obstacle to the trouble-free use of technology. The Amazons in classical mythology removed one of their breasts so as to make optimal use of the bow and arrow. The secretary in the story is too dumb to realise that her breasts are in the way, and so she asks the male technician for help. The technician immediately sees the “fault” and “repairs” it easily. He outwits the female, who is not allowed to see the repair take place - a repair so simple that the woman could just as well have done it herself. Mechanical tools and technical understanding would not have been necessary. Is the story credible? We cannot really believe that anyone able to use a typewriter could be too stupid to notice that they were touching the keyboard with part of their body. It should be obvious to the story-tellers that the story could not have taken place. However it is a question not of the simple truth but of wishful thinking or, to be more precise, of male fantasies. It seems to be irrelevant that the story could not have taken place in this form. The deeper meaning of the story is so important, that it was internalized and passed on for years. It was not told as just any story, but almost as though the story-teller were the mechanic himself. The story-tellers did not only transmit and identify with the content as members of the company, but also as men. Why does the woman have a big bosom? The interest that most men generally show in female breasts is reflected in the story, and there is a direct relation between the product of the technicians and the object of their desires (just think of the breasts that are going to lie on the machine you’re making!). But the large bosom of the typist is also important here because it is combined with simple-mindedness. According to the usual stereotype, women are not intellectually equal to men. The woman in this story embodies femininity in the extreme, and one attribute of this is her simple-mindedness in contrast to the male technician. She is physically attractive and technically

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dim-witted. That the two characteristics assumed to be typical of women come together in this story is not an accident. They fit like the pieces of a puzzle into a male image of the other sex. It is also perfectly fitting that the woman has a typically female profession. Attractiveness is one of the unwritten prerequisites for, and main functions of, the job of secretary. Rosemary Pringle in her study of secretaries (1991:2) gave us the image of a “dolly bird, . . . with long blonde hair, large tits, miniskirts and high heels -a source of chaos in the office”. The sexual component is a constant factor in daily corporate life (Pringle, 1989). Women have to be attractive, a demand that is independent of fashion. The old stereotype of the “dumb blonde”, the brainless “dolly bird”, is still alive. Technology is a domain for male brains, not for female breasts. The secretary used the typewriter but did not understand it, and she did not realise that the malfunction was caused by human error. When women use technology, they press this or that button, and you never see them take off the lid to check the wiring - their job is output, not input, as Cynthia Cockburn wrote in her study of new technologies (1988: 145). Why is the age of the woman, the “girl”, mentioned, but not that of the man, the “mechanic”? The youthfulness of the secretary increases her attractiveness, and accords with the “dolly-bird” image. But youthfulness is not one of the primary criteria of attractiveness in men. Even when a man and a woman are equally old, or equally young, she is referred to in the diminutive form as a girl, while the man is called a man. The combination of being young and new to the company evokes an image of inexperience and naivety. Perhaps this combination of characteristics is meant to help to make the story seem more credible? The fact that the secretary is described as young and new is also important in another way. There is a difference in status between the two people in the story, which can be caught by the designations “white-collar” and “blue-collar”. The secretary’s white-collar status is higher. But the secretary belongs to the lowest rank in her category, and the mechanic to the top of his. Their contact takes place on a kind of borderline zone between them. The youth and inexperience of the secretary facilitates or enables the victory of the mechanic, according to the principle of seniority. Because this is apparently insufficient to

Several illustrations

taken from different sources show a particular

image of the secretary.

Fig. la. This drawing illustrates a story in which a typewriter mechanic tells about his life. (Source: Btiromarkt Nr. 8, April 1949).

CORPORATE

STORY-TELLING

Fig. lb. (Source: Postcard, drawing by Earl Moran, Mutoscope

179

Card, USA, 1940-1950).

express the superiority of men, the physical characteristics of the female secretary are emphasized, to level off and reverse the differences in rank of the different professional groups (Haug, 1983), making the story even more attractive. Why was the typist in the story not allowed to watch the technician during his “repair work”? Why was she sent out of the room? In the trade journal this is explained by the technician’s tactfulness. This “delicate problem” has to be solved without any indication that there is a sexual aspect to the cause. A sense of tact is ascribed to the mechanic, and a certain reluctance to speak about the problem here appears plausible. But the secretary’s admiration for the “excellent mechanic” indicates another explanation. The woman had to be outwitted so that the man would appear to her as an admirable master technician. Behind this is a fear of losing power. Women must not see through the games men play. If they do, the men may not appear invincible. Fortunately however, in the eyes of men they are dumb enough to fall for simple tricks. Ultimately the mechanic cannot be considered very tactful. A gentleman would have remained silent, but he obviously talked about the incident, otherwise it would not have appeared in the Wiener Biirornaschinenrundschau.

SABINE HELMERS and REGINA BUHR

Fig. lc. (Source Advertisement,

Olympia Htidlerbriefe,

Heft 1, 1965).

Kann ich den Brief jetzt unterstreicheln, Frtiulein Vogler?

Fig. Id. “Can I examine your figures now, Miss Vogler?” (Source: Burghagens Zeitschrift fiir Btirobedarf, Heft 2, 1976, p. 52).

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The theme of men outwitting women can be found in numerous classical stories. In the Germanic tradition there is the Siegfried Saga. The king’s daughter, Brunhilde, wilI only marry the man who defeats her in a contest. The hero, Siegfried, uses a trick to help his enamoured friend Gunther defeat her, by making himself invisible with the help of a magic cloak and replacing his weaker friend. Just like Brunhilde, the secretary cannot see how victory has been brought about. The magic cloak, and being sent out of the room, both obscure visibility. When Brunhilde later learns of the dirty trick, she loses her respect for Gunther and in the end Siegfried is killed. The myth suggests that perhaps women do not like to be outwitted, or at least that Brunhilde did not like it. In the story the woman only touches the space key, not a key that produces a letter. We are uncertain whether or not this detail in the story is important, and whether it perhaps carries a particular meaning. Maybe the emptiness of the secretary’s action is being hinted at. She “types” but nothing positive or negative comes of it. Nothing comes of it. But it is more likely that this detail is due to the layout of the keyboard. The raising of the swivel chair four centimetres also appears to have a technical justification. To interpret it as some kind of moral “elevation” does not seem appropriate. Finally, the story-tellers in the company can feel glad that what was thought to be a technical problem requiring a specialist, turned out to be a user problem. The producer had no responsibility. The trouble was caused by improper use - an improper use so improbable that nobody in R and D could have predicted it.

5. THE MEANING

OF THE STORY IN A HETEROGENEOUS

BUSINESS

WORLD

The images of the sexes which the staff who told the story obviously entertained, reflect the male-female images in society as a whole. Similar stories and images can be found elsewhere. Human stupidity in general is a favourite theme for jokes, but it is female stupidity that is particularly widespread in male joking. Yiannis Gabriel (1992:5) for example, who collected and analysed computer lore, found that over half of all the stories he collected highlight human folly and ‘<. . . in many of them the male expert ridicules the ineptitude or stupidity of the non-expert, frequently female, with things technical, thus reinforcing negative gender stereotypes”. Gabriel’s (1992:5) collection of computer fables includes two told by male experts. In one story a female employee is too stupid to handle floppy disks correctly. “She had hole-punched all her disks into a ring binder! We roared with laughter at this one.” The other silly floppy disk maltreatment story which Gabriel had found went as follows: And another woman, funnily enough most of these stories are about women, but that’s not a sexist comment at all, ha, ha, another secretary got a new PC. She’d had an old style PC, with 5.5” disks and she was told that she had to use 3.5” disks with her new PC, so what she did was that she cut down the 5.5” with her scissors and tried to slip them into the drive.

Of course the narrator is wrong - it IS a sexist comment. The story of the buxom secretary is not unique, and is not specific to the particular organisation or to typewriter producers or engineers. What is especially interesting in this one is its proven age of thirty years, and that it is still so much alive and so frequently mentioned. Thus one of the vehicles for the reproduction of gender stereotypes is the telling of stories such as the one in our example. New generations of staff members take up the story, which has become part of the company’s history. And the men telling the story have a good laugh at the expense of the big-bosomed office girl outwitted by the clever mechanic.

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HELMERS

and REGINA

BUHR

Why has this old story been kept alive so long? Our view is that it has remained as topical as it was 30 years ago because the cultural - which also means the social and economic - basis for it has not changed fundamentally during this period. In line with the perspective on gender relations in companies which we have adopted in this paper, we can identify heterogeneous corporate cultures with their differentiated structures as an historical constant. A close study of the culture of a corporation reveals a dynamic multi-faceted picture comprising a variety of subgroups or subcultures (Gregory, 1983). Typical of companies divided into different departments - which may themselves evince subcultural characteristics (Helmers, 1993) - is the heterogeneity of these departments. Each one has its own logic, its own interests contingent on the tasks it has to perform, and a specific system of perception, thinking and acting which can conflict with those of other departments. In a manufacturing company like the one we studied, this may mean for example that a distribution department which has become large and successful by selling mechanical and semielectrified office machines, may be reluctant to distribute multifunctional electronic office equipment. It will see them less as an option for future success and more as a threat to its present standing. Similar examples could be given for a production department. A new printing process which requires the production of hairline thin jets, means a major change in the previous production process geared to the making and assembling of mechanical and electromechanical components. The problem may look quite different to the people in the R and D department. Here the development of new technical solutions is the primary task. Unlike the production department, where the need for smooth operations is paramount, the development department is interested in innovation using the latest technologies. In one interview a former member of the board of directors characterized the production department as “the bulls” and the development department as “the ones with drive”. But the interaction between the various departments is determined not only by their different tasks but also by differences in status. Depending on the predominating culture in a company, the business aspect or the technical aspect may be most highly valued. If people are to work together in the best interests of the company despite the conflicts that arise, there must be something to build a bridge between the individual groups - sales, production, development, management, etc. In the twenties the company we are studying was able to reconcile workers with a proud tradition in precision engineering to the idea of the division of labour and the introduction of women on the assembly line. The mens’ pride was further increased by declaring the women to be dependent on the tools they created (Buhr, 1993). A similar policy for overcoming internal organisational boundaries can be found today. How can a common corporate identity be developed in spite of different internal organizational needs? The identity of a person or group is based on its difference in relation to others. Simone de Beauvoir (1949) pointed out the fundamental importance of the “other” as a basic category of human thought in relation to gender relationships. The feeling of “belonging” in a company is partly created in opposition to other corporations, especially to competitors. These are the external “others”. In a company with male and female employees and an accompanying sexual division of labour, something resembling male and female spheres can be found, expressed and maintained with the help of ideas and symbols such as appearance, language and behavioural patterns (Acker, 1990: 146 f.). The separation into male and female worlds encourages harmony by creating a gendered solidarity. Unlike relations with the external “others”, a feeling of belonging can be created within a company because of solidarity with “others” within the firm. The different subgroups are held together by this crossgroup belongingness. Corporate unity is created partly by an awareness of belonging to the same

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sex as people in other parts of the company. Depending on the actual context of “us”, the barriers between the professions and departments, the differences between “white-collar” and “bluecollar” workers or between grades of seniority can be overcome by a unifying common denominator of the kind that gender represents. This gender solidarity may also unite different groups in an exclusively male company, in which women may be perceived as external “others”. It is necessary to emphasize that in a corporate culture divided into male and female spheres, there is a hierarchy between these spheres. It is not just a simple hierarchy, but two quite separate groups each with their own cultural characteristics. The division of the world into a subaltern female grouping and a dominant male one - supported by the utterly baseless idea that the male group is hierarchically superior - has promoted sexual identification and encouraged a sense of “belongingness” in the group that considers itself superior. This status, which is associated with all kinds of privileges, can only be maintained by a strong unity which is built up, among other things, by belittling women. In a study of the engineering profession Doris Janshen and Hedwig Rudolph (1987b:28 1) describe the “full-blooded engineer” as being able to hold his liquor and capable of rough speech which can be discriminatory vis-rivis women - a “real man” or “he-man” (Neef, 1990:76). He is buddies with the other men. In one of the rare empirical studies of this phenomenon in corporations, Herminia Ibarra (1992) demonstrates with the help of a network analysis how male staff members are able to create and maintain an unequal sexual division of power at the workplace by acting like members of a fraternity. Ethnological studies provide an abundance of examples of the international tendency of men to band together; the tendency is culturally universal (Schweizer, 1990). It is directed against women when this half of humankind is excluded. Men join in war alliances, create oldboy networks or esoteric secret societies such as the Duk-Duk of the Tolai in New Britain or the Freemasons’ lodges. They assume exclusive control of the domains of religion and politics. Women band together and separate themselves from the other sex much less than men do on their part. There are also clear indications that men are more inclined than women to uphold the typical sexual stereotypes (Snizek and Neil, 1992). The belittling laughter of men at the expense of women, especially over jokes with sexual components, serves to maintain the “homosocial order” (Calas and Smircich, 1989). It serves to overcome internal organizational barriers in the interests of the corporation. But we will see below that what appears at first sight to be a successful alliance, often only wins a Pyrrhic victory.

6. HOW DOES THE APPARENT VICTORY OF THE MASCULINE MIND TURN COUNTERPRODUCTIVE? OR: CONCERNING THE PASSIONATE RELATIONSHIP DEVELOPMENT ENGINEERS AND THEIR PRODUCTS

OF

Just as Gunther’s and Siegfried’s tactics worked against their authors in the long run, the advantages of common unity and support can become counterproductive, if resources for technical development are wasted; and these are certainly wasted if the opportunities for exploiting technical innovation to produce equipment that is more user-friendly, are vitiated by the prevalent images of women. In the research and development departments, we studied the way in which an almost entirely male staff created a product used almost exclusively by women. As has already been mentioned, typewriters constitute the most important group of products in the company. They are used mainly in offices by female typists. We have dealt here with the subject of male unity in a heterogeous organizational framework. We were also interested in the effect which the cliche that

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HELMERS

and REGINA

BUHR

was constantly reproduced in the telling of the story of the beautiful, dumb, big-bosomed typewriter-user, had on the concrete work of developing the product - the typewriter. The image we have acquired of the engineer is of someone dedicated to his development work, someone who feels an intense relationship with the machine he has created. Our research leads us to describe the attitude of the development engineer towards his product as “identification”. This identification can go so far, that the product becomes a quasi extension of the self. Having to watch how a stupid, clumsy person handles his creation in a rough manner, can be almost physically painful to the engineer. The fear that the user may not treat his product (himself) properly, expresses itself among other things in the requirement that the typist should treat it gently. The image of “female typewriting” appeared early, with the entry of women into the world of office work. What was expected was not manly strength and noisy typing, but rather harmonious evenness and a gentle noiselessness. “The good typist does not hammer away at the keys but rather presses them with a balanced, even touch. The sound her machine makes is not a clatter but rather a humming sound”, declared a male expert in 1930 (Bode: “Der Beruf der Stenotypistin”, quoted in Segelken 1991: 167). This statement was made at a time when the development of the not yet electrified typewriter demanded a relatively strong touch of the typist. As Sabine Segelken (1991:254 f.) has shown, the act of writing is described differently in accordance with the sexual stereotypes: the man writes with energy and strength, the woman with elegance and speed. It seems plausible that a development engineer, who can sometimes identify with his work and the results of his work so strongly that he feels it to be an extension of himself, will be influenced by the image of the people who will use his machine. Long fingernails

When we asked about taking the needs of the typists into account in adapting the construction to the user, the answers in the company included a description of their efforts to adapt the machine to the typically longer female fingernails. Complicated calculations and testing were necessary to measure the angle and distance between the keys in order to keep the long-nailed typists from involuntarily hitting the “w” when pressing the “s”, which is placed diagonally below it. Unfortunately we do not know whether this expenditure was really significant, and how it compares with the expenditure on other developments. What we do know is that a competitor, a large typewriter manufacturer, stressed the “fingernail-friendliness” of their machines in advertising campaigns. Perhaps they too have spent some effort on the problem? How artificial this fingernail problem really is quickly becomes obvious when we examined secretarial and typing offices, and asked the people working there about it. Although all the typists in our immediate neighbourhood at the institute had heard of the phenomenon of long fingernails getting in the way, as professional typists they had never found it to be a real problem. Whenever the example of a specific person occurred to those questioned, it was always a secretary, and since typing constituted only about 20% of her secretarial work, it is clear that the problem of long fingernails was not a very important problem in the use of typing machines (Biallo, 1992: 12). However, development engineers, satisfied with the quality of their products, are convinced they know how a user-friendly typewriter should be constructed. Just as in the story of the mechanic and the secretary, the problem of long fingernails is a question of female symbols in male minds. But in this case a real problem arises as a result of the symbol, and expensive development capacity is said to have been invested in trying to solve it. This contemporary evidence of the way prejudices and unrealistic images can affect

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development work can be supported by examples from the history of the typewriter. There is evidence that the image of a user may sometimes have very little to do with his or her real needs. We therefore pose the question as to whether historical examples of user-unfriendly writing technology may be related, at least partly, to the image of the female - and therefore thoroughly stupid - typist. We will briefly describe below three historical cases of particular images of women. Electr@ation

When mechanical typewriters were being developed and marketed at the turn of tbe century, many suggestions were made about providing these machines with electric motors. Even so it took more than 50 years for the electric age to dawn for most typists. The mechanical typewriter predominated in offices until the middle of the fifties. The Mercedes Btiromaschinen-Werke AG in Germany produced the legendary “Mercedes Elektra” in large numbers in 1921, with electric keys and an electric shift key. But unlike the first IBM golf-ball typewriters at the beginning of the sixties, which were copied by the entire typewriter industry, the Mercedes concept was not taken up by any other typewriter producer. Even AEG, a company devoted to the production of electric instruments and the electrification of the world, did not bring out its first electric typewriter until 1955, and even then only the carriage and the line spacer were electrical. And yet the construction and use of an electric typewriter would have made typing so much easier: Mercedes Btiromaschinen-Werke’s advertisements for its Mercedes Elektra at the beginning of the twenties suggests that the weaknesses of the mechanical machines and the advantages of the electric ones were well known (Knie et al., 1992). Is it an accident that an innovation which was technically possible and useful to the typist was

GRUSSTE

SCHONUNG

KOSTBARER

ARBEITSKRAFT

Bei gewBhnlichsn

Moschinen irt bel jedom Ansdrlog lfn Drudc van rund 600 g ausruirban. Hinru kommt noch der Kroftoufwond fib Wogenaufrug, Umrcholtung U‘W. -, eine enorme Beonrpruchung des Schreibcndenl Dogepen 1st bei der Mercedes Elcktro dur& lcihte Tortenberirhrung fiir jede dieser Funktfonen - gleichggttig ob Anrdrlog, Umrcholtung oder Wogenrjddouf - nur co. 40 g Drudc tu Ieist*n. Selbst bei der gesteigerten Arbeftsgesdwindigkeit dcr Morceder Hektro lrgibt dor line Krofterspornisvan gber #) XI Eine unmittelbore Folge dicsw proBen Arbeitslrlel&tenmg ist, do0 nidtt nur okute Ermiidungserxheinungen, rondem oud~ die bei Moschinenschreibemouftwtenden Ikrufskronkheften Kophchmerzen, Nervenrdwr&%e, Gelenk- und Mur kelst&ungen rermieden

Fig. 2a. The Greatest Possible Savings in Labor. With an ordinary machine it takes a pressure of 600 grams to press a key. It also costs energy to use the carriage, shift key, etc. -altogether a great demand on the typist. But with the Mercedes Elektra only a light touch is needed, be it for the keys, the carriage or shift key. Only 40 grams is needed. Even with increased speed the Mercedes Elektra reduces the work 90%. The immediate result is that not only acute exhaustion but also typical complaints of typists such as headaches, nervousness, finger and muscle problems can be avoided. (Source: Advertisement, Mercedes-Btlromaschinen-Werke, Thuringia early 1920s).

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SABINE HELMERS and REGINA BUHR

Ich bleib’ voll Grazie und Humor, Vcrbieg’ mir R&&en nicht und Rippen: An der MERCEDES der Motor Macht mir zur Spielerei das Tippen ! Fig. 2b. I remain full of grace and humour

(Source: Advertisement,

Without always bending my frame. The Mercedes with its motor Makes typing a game. Postcard, Mercedes-Btiromaschinenwerke, Thuringia, 1926 H. Falkenberg: Biirowelt.” Niimberg: H. Falkenbergverlag, p. 53).

“GruB aus der

not realized? Of course there are plausible economic explanations: women were cheap office labour and employers could not be bothered to buy them more expensive electrical machines. Thus, there may have been a silent demand on the part of the female users, but perhaps no sufficiently strong demand from the male buyers to make the producers act. The producers, on the other hand, have not shown much initiative or been very innovative. We suggest that explanations other than the purely economic ones should also be considered. What development engineer would light-heartedly ruin the design of a beautiful machine meant to be used by a dumb, big-bosomed typist, by installing an ugly electric motor hanging on the machine like an ulcer? Perhaps this “aestheticism in typewriter engineering” (Kasparek, 1941) and similar manifestations of culturally shaped perceptions and decisions which affect R and D alongside the “purely rational” economic considerations, could also be taken into account in the study of technology development and user-orientation.

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I& sag’ die Wahrhcit klar und nackt, Euch Irmas, Friedas. Paulas, Heder: Begiiickt ma&t lmmer dcr Kontakt, Besorrders aber bei MERCEDES! Fig. 2c. I saw the truth, a clear and naked fact. Listen all you Irmas, Friedas, Paulas, Hedes. Happiness is made by the contact But especially with Mercedes. (Source: Advertisement, Postcard, Mercedes-Biiromaschinen-Werke, Thuringia,

early 1920s).

Automatic erasing device Mercedes Biiromaschinen-Werke, whose “Mercedes Elektra” showed that technical and sales managers were open to new technologies, paid little attention to another user-friendly innovation: the development and production of an automatic erasing device for typing errors was blocked on alleged economic and technical grounds by the production side. Between 1923 and 1925 this user requirement was being treated as a positive idea in the correspondence between the Berlin headquarters and the Thuringian branch (Knie et al., 1992). But nothing concrete came of it, and it can be shown that even in 1940 the Mercedes typewriters still had no automatic erasing function. As in our story of the mechanic and the secretary, the technically solvable problem of typing errors was redefined as a user problem. By playing off professional typists who typed perfectly against the cheaper and less qualified who needed a correcting device, the need for change was directed at the typists and transformed into a user problem. In view of the fact that

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the IBM golf ball typewriters owed their popularity and success to their correcting device, it is clear that the earlier behaviour of the producers was not perhaps very wise, because a reasonably priced automatic erasing device may well have been a good sales argument even in those days. The keyboard

A third example shows that women, especially when they use a typewriter, are regarded by male development engineers as possessing little mental ability and being unable to adapt to change. Just as there were many kinds of typewriter at the turn of the century based on different printing techniques, there were also many variations in the keyboards where the keys and letters were differently arranged. Considering the variety that was technically possible and the recognised weaknesses of the Remington standard keyboard, we would like to ask why a system known to be user-unfriendly was able to dominate, even though producers and distributors always emphasized the importance of usefulness. For example, Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck, the first person to develop the German AEG typewriter, conceived a model in his workshop in 1903 which deviated from the Remington standard and introduced instead an ergonomically improved “ideal keyboard”. Although experts who examined the model admitted that the Remington keyboard with its American layout was ill suited to the German language, the directors of AEG rejected the model on grounds “that the vast numbers of customers already used to the Remington keyboard are a great obstacle to the introduction of a new one” (Thtiringisches Landeshauptarchiv Weimar, File 466, Protokoll by W. Hackmann, 4 July 1903. English translation). Not only did the company “know better,” ignoring the experience of those who had used the “ideal keyboard’, but it also denied the ability of typists to learn to use a new kind of keyboard with a different arrangement of the letters. Even today the Remington standard keyboard has still not been replaced by an ergonomically better version. Can the manufacturer’s hesitation about producing better keyboards be related at least partly to the image of the stupid user? Perhaps the answer may appear in the near future, as an ever increasing number of men will be using keyboards to type things into their computers. Will we see an ergonomically ideal keyboard then? The historical examples presented here suggest that the artificially created “fingernailproblem” that we were told about in our studied company is not an isolated case. In the history of the development of the typewriter many obviously important innovations have been constructed, but many other technically possible improvements, which were generally recognized as user-friendly, were never launched on the market. The examples illustrate the power of preconceptions over actions in technical development work (Dierkes et al., 1992), and demonstrate just how long discriminatory and unreal images of women can persist. What the men achieve, unthinkingly guided by their own sense of superiority, will be something of a Pyrrhic victory so long as women are still usually denied the responsibility of purchasing the items, such as office machines, that they themselves will be using in their work. But the idea is gaining ground that it is a good idea to consult the users when buying new machines. This is sensible, considering that many office decision makers today lack sufficient knowledge to select the most useful and appropriate models for the work to be done from a variety of functions and options; it has become increasingly apparent that a user-oriented technical innovation cannot be successful without talking to users. Images like that of the dumb, big-bosomed typist lead to technical problem formulations and solutions which do not increase sales, because they do not address the needs of the users. Expensive development resources may then be wasted in producing innovations that benefit

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neither the user nor the producer. The victory of the male mind becomes a Pyrrhic victory when, as in the case of the fingernails, time and money are invested in an artificial problem. Those responsible should probe the views and attitudes of the people ordering or carrying out such research. If corporations are serious about creating user-oriented technology, they must become sensitive to the cultural and social dimensions of corporate policy. And these include, as the present article has tried to prove, gender relationships. The R and D staff in the corporation we studied apparently still worked under the influence of the “dolly bird” image. Ideas about dumb machine operators whose big bosoms and long fingernails cause problems in their work, can even affect the actual artifact being produced. The definition of a technological problem is interpreted through the filter of the mentality of the R and D staff. What they consider problematic and therefore calling for improvement, is what will be tackled. The examples from the field of typing described above show the harmful effect that unrealistic wishful thinking has had on technological development. This could have been reduced if greater attention had been paid to the realities of working life. One absolutely necessary step in this direction would be the inclusion of the “other”, the female half of humanity, in technological development work. Technical R and D remains as before a male domain. In the “hard’ technical fields there are seldom more than two women to every hundred engineers, and this has not changed since 1900 (Janshen and Rudolph, 1987:2). Technological developments cannot be regarded merely as “objective” and “neutral”, although they have been treated in the past as quasi parthenogenic products of the pure mind (Bijker et al., 1987). It is vital to take into account their cultural and social components, not the least of which is gender. When Gisela Notz states (1992: 146), “We identify technology the way it is presented today as an expression of patriarchal characteristics and passions”, she is indicating the non-rational side of technological development which we have referred to in this article. Bearing this in mind, it becomes clear that a simple qualitative increase in the number of women will not solve the problem (Cockbum, 1983, 1988; Janshen, 1990). Apparently the association of the male with intellect and domination, and the association of the female with the body and subordination are so ingrained that the exceptional woman who makes it into a leadership position (still) to a great extent uses male stereotypes to orient herself, and especially in technical professions often adapts herself by concealing her womanhood (Sorensen, 1984; Sheppard, 1989; Pringle, 1989: 176 f; Janshen and Rudolph, 1987a:201 f). Karin Diegelmann, spokesperson for the German Association of Women Engineers, makes it clear that the question is not merely one of quantity when she describes the position of qualified women in technical professions and of women engineers as resembling “solitary confinement”, under close observation and with little hope of improvement. Although more women are increasingly breaking into male-dominated technical fields, the problem cannot be solved if the price of entry is conformity to structures and modes of behaviour determined by men. In a study of men and women engineers a male engineer gave his personal view of working with highly qualified women in technical professions, at the same time revealing the false dichotomy between logic/intelligence vs attractive femininity. If he was to accept a female colleague in the same way as he accepts a male one, he explained, she should not be “ . . . some kind of sexy type but rather someone with the same kind of dedication, standpoint and ability [as a male], someone who can think logically and is intelligent” (Janshen and Rudolph, 1987:310). This statement illustrates the pressure for conformity to “male objectivity”, what is sometimes known as the “beige suit syndrome”. Such statements are not rare. Gendered thinking along the black and white lines described appears - as we have seen here - to reflect commonly held opinions, manifesting themselves for example in company “stories” and in technical

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development. A crucial problem is that they are very seldom made explicit. Sexuality is a universal taboo, and feelings of embarrassment are connected with it (note that the mechanic remains tactfully silent about the cause of the problem). The hierarchy that exists as regards gender relationships is important in this context. What appears to be “objective”, “logical” or, as in our example, “technically conditioned”, often proves under scrutiny to be not so very neutral after all. It has been our intention to demonstrate this here with some examples. “It is by making it visible, exposing the masculinity that lurks behind gender-neutrality, asserting women’s rights to be subjects rather than objects of sexual discourses, that bureaucracy can be challenged”, writes Rosemary Pringle (1989: 177). The historical and the more recent examples from the field of typewriter technology presented in this article have been offered in support of our opinion that the reproduction of a negative stereotype of women, which could perhaps be deemed “useful” from the company’s point of view for its uniting value, can prove counterproductive if possible opportunities for greater competitiveness are neglected. Corporate male thinking based on an unreflecting sense of superiority does not pay off in the long run.

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