[Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"

Sun Apr 17 16:27:53 EDT 2022

I took a typing class in high school.  I think it was an elective course.  There were a few of those in my high school back in the early 1970s.  As it turns out, it proved to be the most valuable, or at least, practical skill I learned during my young life in terms of making a living.

Mark Scott
Common Reader

From: Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf 
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2022 1:12 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] "the 'ignorance' of privilege"

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 ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart This Message Is From an External Sender  
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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> På vegne av Danell Jones via Vwoolf
Sendt: lørdag 16. april 2022 22:32
Til: Mary Ellen Foley <mefoleyuk at gmail.com>; Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>
Kopi: 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
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2022 12:41 PM
To: Stuart N. Clarke
Cc: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
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> 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!i5PlOhOEG3G1Xg1D1RJxmb7n6fkFNMaMoRodtsh0599DPlb1JfOw5elYiOr1MmremKE$  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!i5PlOhOEG3G1Xg1D1RJxmb7n6fkFNMaMoRodtsh0599DPlb1JfOw5elYiOr1MmremKE$ 

  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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