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Re: Is the title "secretary" offensive?
I hear its making a comeback. From Forbes:
Why Is The Word 'Secretary' Making A Comeback?
Image via Wikipedia
There?s something sexy about the word ?secretary?. Maybe it?s the fault of Joan Holloway, the shapely red-head who sweeps regally through the office in Mad Men, leaving a trail of slavering men in her wake. Maybe it?s because of Maggie Gyllenhaal and those unforgettable ads for her role in ?Secretary,? showing her crouched on all fours in a tight black dress, bearing a letter to her boss between her teeth.
What I?m trying to say is, in the twenty-first century, this word refers to more than just a job, signifying instead a submissive and even fetishized role. Secretaries are old-fashioned horn-rimmed spectacle wearing figures. They?re always women. That?s probably why the National Secretaries Association, founded in 1942, changed its name to International Association of Administrative Professionals in 2001.
So why did the word ?secretary? pop up in the President?s State of the Union speech last night?
One reason is that Warren Buffett had already used it, famously observing that he pays a lower rate of tax than his staff. Buffett is cuddly and generous, and an iconic figure; that makes his use of a retrogressive word okay. Right?
(To be fair, although this is what everyone says he said, including the President, I didn?t find any instances of Buffett himself using this term ? instead, in clips, he seems to favor the much more politically-correct phrase, ?the people in my office?.)
Obama mentioned Buffett?s ?secretary? twice in his speech, and the word has swept uncritically through newspapers today, appearing in the New York Times, and across a host of other news outlets. Debbie Bosanek ? the secretary herself ? played a symbolic role in the State of the Union address, sitting right beside Michelle Obama.
On twitter, I found a few people who picked up on this aspect of the address. ?It?ll be nice when a POTUS can say A billionaire should pay as high taxes as HER secretary,?? tweeted Abigail Collazo. Brad Wollack remarked, ?Secretary?? Am I watching the State of the Union from 1963?? But most tweets featuring this word simply repeated the soundbite from Obama?s speech.
I wonder if we?re happy to embrace the idea of the ?secretary? because of the tough times that we?re in. We have more to worry about than political correctness, and besides, the 1950s and 1960s were an economic golden age. The notion of a secretary has become part of a fond communal memory. Men were bosses, women were their diligent employees; life may have been a bit restricted, but the social structures were reassuring.
But those limiting stereotypes are the very reasons why the word ?secretary? lost its currency in the first place. According to the International Association of Administrative Professionals, ?many workers around the world still hold the ?secretary? job title; however, many alternative titles have become more popular, such as administrative assistant, office coordinator, administrative specialist, executive assistant, and office manager.?
These days men can be ?secretaries,? women can be ?bosses? and that ought to be reflected in our language, especially in the words of the President and in the country?s leadings newspapers. After all, this isn?t 1942, it?s 2012.
Update: I just got off the phone with Ray Weikal from the International Association of Administrative Professionals and he said the job description ?secretary? is having a comeback. Over the past twenty years, the trend has been towards terms like ?executive assistant? or ?administrator.? But Weikal carried out a report last year that showed a change. ?For the first time in 20 years the percentage of respondants who reported having the word secretary in their job titles increased significantly, I would say by 15 percentage points from the previous survey,? he said.
As early as the 1950s, Weikal says, there were attempts to change the rhetoric around the profession, and as feminism flourished this trend continued. By the mid-nineties, a minority of members of the Association described themselves as secretaries.
Weikal doesn?t have an explanation for the about-face that we?re seeing today. He notes that during the recession, ?all administrators have sseen their responsiblities increasing significantly.?
But he thinks it may have something to do with a certain TV show ? and calls it the ?Mad Men effect.?
IDK, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
I once met a woman who instructs in an elementary school, but she finds the term "teacher" offensive. In the few hours I was around her, she said several times (with no context and to no one in particular; this was a conference setting) "I am not a teacher. I am an EDUCATOR".
I agree with outdated.
When I think "secretary" I think someone who types all day and orders flowers and meals for their bosses friends/clients.
I think of "secretary" as someone the boss is banging.
In other words, I agree with the article.
I'm a secretary.
I don't have any delusions about what I do for a living.
Updated September 2012.
And no, I'm not banging the boss. wtf?
Updated September 2012.
I guarantee the majority of her parents hate her.
In my experience, these ones make the worst teachers.
Click me, click me!
Random aside, the flight attendant I know is rubbed the wrong way by it because people are dumbasses and call the men "male stewardesses", so she prefers the gender neutral term to the dumbassery. Even more random, they used to be called "air hostesses", which is really offensive given the scope of their jobs.
I like "sky waitress" instead
Ugh, I wish I could remember where I heard it, but there was a rant in a movie or somewhere by a flight attendant going off about not being called a waitress since if the plane goes down it's their job to save asses. I wish I could remember what it was, it was funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBYvQXj21CU
That's just ridiculous. I refer to myself as an educator now because it encompasses the whole field of education (and my role is no longer specifically a teacher), but when I was a teacher, I was a teacher.
I don't think these three titles are interchangeable, at all.
You can't be called an executive assistant unless you assist an executive. Otherwise Administrative Assistant makes more sense.
In our org we have secretaries and admins. Their jobs are different. Secretaries type emails, schedule, and in general keep management in line. Admins deal with the paperwork and record keeping.
My Chart My Nest Bio
Replacements fan?
When I first started at my job, I called my secretary my administrative assistant in my vm, i.e., "if you need immediate assistance, please dial 113 for my admin asst.", and she asked me to change it to secretary. I thought I was being PC, but she was very clear that she was my secretary.
I'm a lawyer, btw.
I mean as the punch line of a joke.
Maybe this is a California thing, I can't honestly say I've ever encountered someone referred to by themselves or others as a secretary.
They have been called secretaries in all four law offices I've worked in.
But law is generally an old school type of profession....