[Vwoolf] "the ignorance of privilege"

Sun Apr 17 12:33:34 EDT 2022

Re shorthand. My sister did a secretarial course in the mid 60s, and learned shorthand just when dictaphones were making it redundant. But she then went to university and used it for taking notes in lectures. She got a first-class degree, and was told that her examiners were struck by the shorthand notes on her exam papers. A friend's mother started writing a diary in shorthand when her husband was captured after the fall of Singapore in WW2. She added entries every day until she died about a decade ago. But now, getting it transcribed, requires a very rare skill. She did not know whether her husband was even alive until after the Japanese surrender. She told me that when he was missing she said: "If he comes back alive I'll never complain about anything ever again. And I haven't."

Did Virginia type?

Stuart is right about the fear of destitution. My generation (I was born in 1942) skipped it to a significant extent. Full employment, unemployment pay, in the UK the National Health Service. What I think E M Forster calls "the abyss" (have I remembered that right?) was something we thought no longer existed, apart from accidents and bad luck on the health front. We thought it would never return. It has.

Jeremy H.

From: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> On Behalf Of Marcia James via Vwoolf
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2022 6:18 PM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "the ignorance of privilege"

I'm so enjoying this exchange, especially Stuart's imagining of his parents' conversation. My brother (Stewart, as it happens) was known as the Deill's ain bucky - the Devil's own child and a far cry from Lord Muck. As for typing classes . ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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I'm so enjoying this exchange, especially Stuart's imagining of his parents' conversation. My brother (Stewart, as it happens) was known as the Deill's ain bucky - the Devil's own child and a far cry from Lord Muck. As for typing classes . . . when I felt I couldn't take my broken heart back to college, I was enrolled by my father in Colonel Soule's secretarial school in New Orleans. I studied typing, shorthand, and business English for eight hours a day over one summer - and fled back to college in the fall.

Marcia

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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: "the 'ignorance' of privilege" (Jeremy Hawthorn)
  2. Re: "the 'ignorance' of privilege" (Stuart N. Clarke)

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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2022 08:12:45 +0000
From: Jeremy Hawthorn <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no<mailto:jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>>
To: "vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>" <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"
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The supreme irony in all this is that we would all have benefitted from a basic course in typing at school. With work on PCs well-nigh universal, the skill of typing is accordingly almost universally useful. As a boy in England I was forced to study woodwork and metalwork, at both of which I was so incompetent that one teacher hit me hard across the head with a length of wood. Ah, the good old days. Had I learned to type properly, I might this very moment be using more that two fingers to type. Mind you, that is double the number used by an old friend who worked as a lawyer all his life. So women in the professions who were forced to take courses in typing have the last laugh on us men here I think.

Jeremy H

Fra: Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu>> P? vegne av Danell Jones via Vwoolf
Sendt: l?rdag 16. april 2022 22:32
Til: Mary Ellen Foley <mefoleyuk at gmail.com<mailto:mefoleyuk at gmail.com>>; Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com<mailto:stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>>
Kopi: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Emne: Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"

My mother also told me that I had to take a typing class in high school because then I would always have something to ?fall back on.? As I remember it, secretarial work was considered not just safe but respectable and even a little upwardly ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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My mother also told me that I had to take a typing class in high school because then I would always have something to ?fall back on.?

As I remember  it, secretarial work was considered not just safe but respectable and even a little upwardly mobile. (Neither of my grandmothers could type.) There was a sense that being a secretary in an office was a safe, professional job that meant you didn?t have to do manual labor.

I don?t know if this is an American thing, but even though I had a typical middle-class upbringing, a fear of losing everything was threaded through it. Poverty and failure lurked in the shadows. My dad was an Okie, so that probably explains a lot.

Danell

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From: Mary Ellen Foley via Vwoolf<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2022 12:41 PM
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Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"

Ah, yes. Something to fall back on. I was majoring in chemistry, with a place at Stanford for graduate school, and my mother, who was paying for books and living expenses (tuition was via scholarship), insisted that I take some classes in the ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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Ah, yes.  Something to fall back on.  I was majoring in chemistry, with a place at Stanford for graduate school, and my mother, who was paying for books and living expenses (tuition was via scholarship), insisted that I take some classes in the education department because, and I do quote exactly here, "If a woman can't do anything else, she can always teach or be a secretary."

Bless her heart.  What a lovely vote of confidence!  At least that's how I took it at the time, though she might have meant "If a woman isn't permitted to do anything else..."  And the education classes were utter DRECK -- I despair for Kentucky schools, I really do --

Then again, she might have had a point.  I have an unfashionable regional accent, and a friend of mine who also moved to the Bay Area ended up working on a loading dock, because companies wouldn't hire her as a front-desk receptionist because of her accent.  I am sure that, when I did go to get a job, I probably had a harder time of it than those who sounded like the announcers on TV.

That was -*cough*- decades ago.  I do hope things have changed...

Mary Ellen

On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 11:04 AM Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu><mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>> wrote:
I know this isn?t really relevant to the listserv, but it will resonate with those of you who (like me) come from working-class backgrounds: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!gal8iIhX-Xnm6NuOGplp4AWk0vqeDA9kAEqydb1yH8zSkehSuEnxGxkbHaK7FPMNyhc$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!gal8iIhX-Xnm6NuOGplp4AWk0vqeDA9kAEqydb1yH8zSkehSuEnxGxkbHaK7FPMNyhc$> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!gH-UkaXScOEYmSgt3p90A7JoQTQcJ4dN6O9jRlCDe2ycgM-BLLdgP2srmOn2E73fqRA$> I saw a black woman on the TV the other day, ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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I know this isn?t really relevant to the listserv, but it will resonate with those of you who (like me) come from working-class backgrounds:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!gal8iIhX-Xnm6NuOGplp4AWk0vqeDA9kAEqydb1yH8zSkehSuEnxGxkbHaK7FPMNyhc$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!gal8iIhX-Xnm6NuOGplp4AWk0vqeDA9kAEqydb1yH8zSkehSuEnxGxkbHaK7FPMNyhc$> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61107909__;!!KGKeukY!jqPe0meTvr01hNVZznnvkz6Z06TNnQ2kd0H0ZG40o5HZ1vHKY6J7qH1mDiJtWqW9MV4$>

I saw a black woman on the TV the other day, who went to the careers? advisor at school and said she wanted to go to university.  ?What about secretarial college??

Which reminds me of Sylvia Plath and her mother: go to secretarial college and you?ll have something to fall back on.  From memory, in ?The Bell Jar? she didn?t want to type interesting letters for some man, but write interesting letters herself.

I remember telling a Woolfian acquaintance that I had never wanted to work, never had any idea of what to do.  She was surprised/shocked: ?What about publishing??

I then fantasised about going back in time and telling my parents that I wanted to go into publishing, and their subsequent conversation in their bedroom:

?Where?s Lord Muck got *this* idea from??

?Well, he hasnae got it from me.?

Stuart
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2022 11:07:39 +0100
From: "Stuart N. Clarke" <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com<mailto:stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>>
To: <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"
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If you live in a country that doesn?t have a national health service nor something equivalent to a welfare state, then it is reasonable to worry about money.  Hence, Leslie Stephen?s panicking about money.  Of course, Julia had a lot of money behind her (where did it all go to?), but, suppose Leslie had been the sole breadwinner (as it were), what would have happened to the family if he had died suddenly?  Cf. the effect of Leonard?s father?s death on the family (and see Angus Wilson?s ?The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot?).

I believe that a middle-class Victorian paterfamilias was recommended to save a substantial proportion of his yearly income to cope with various rainy days.

(I feel I may have sidetracked people over typing ? it really was the article that resonated with me.)

Stuart

From: Danell Jones
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2022 9:31 PM
To: Mary Ellen Foley ; Stuart N. Clarke
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"

[snip]

I don?t know if this is an American thing, but even though I had a typical middle-class upbringing, a fear of losing everything was threaded through it. Poverty and failure lurked in the shadows. My dad was an Okie, so that probably explains a lot.

Danell

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