14th Apr 2008
Girls in the workplace? Eeek!
Two management training films. Both attempt to teach men how to deal with having to manage women. (Because women are incomprehensible, I guess.) No real deep message or analysis here, just interesting viewing, especially if you’re a woman who works outside the home.
From 1944, Supervising Women Workers
Apparently, there were some “new and different problems” involved in women working in factories. (Well, in machine shops, that is. Women were in mills and other industries for years.) Intriguingly, the very appropriate advice to not sexually harass your employees is explained as a way to prevent jealousy between them. Bleargh.
I liked the bit where the guy was demonstrating a lathe.
Now if anybody wants a framspan, give with the left-handed double gerrywrench on account of it might surbobulate the orange crepe to the tappet…
Here’s a tip, Joe: maybe you should have your machine shop instructor use real words instead of total gibberish. No wonder World War II was rough: women were surbobulating things. (Oh, I know, they’re just demonstrating how unfamiliar words can sound like total gibberish. But isn’t it funnier to think of warships built with crepes?)
“Surbobulate” is now my new favorite word to use in the factory. Yeah, I work in a factory — I’m an engineer. And the boys nowadays are just as ignorant as the girls. (No, this doesn’t mean men got dumber in the last sixty years. It means the women were never as stupid as the men feared.)
Take the weak-minded, jealous, defensive women that this film suggests are in factories everywhere. Now take Rosie the Riveter. Which one would you find more inspirational as a potential factory worker recruit?
Moving out of the factory and into the office, we have 1958’s The Bright Young Newcomer
Once you get past the cringe-worthy use of “girl” to describe all the women in the office, you can get to the root of the manager’s problem: he’s ignoring what happens in his department, even as he promises an employee that he’ll deal with it. He says he’s busy and that’s why he couldn’t deal with it, but it’s pretty clear that he’s busy because ignores his job (MANAGING people) until a situation blows up in his face.
There’s also no particular reason why this scenario should have to have a male manager trying to figure out what to do with the “girls” around him. If it was just to get the probably-male audience more interested in the film’s message by putting lots of breasts and skirts in it, why is Betty so unappealing?
[...] reprise the 1944 instructional film, Supervising Women [...]