Uncovering what's really going on with Administrative Professionals Week
A few months ago my grocery store was hit by a flurry of Hallmark cards wishing a "Happy Administrative Professional Week." What's the deal with honoring administrative professionals with an entire week of acknowledgement?
(For those of you already in the know and more sophisticated than me, feel free to roll your eyes. If you're oblivious like me, read on...)
As you might have picked up on from watching Mad Men, the secretarial profession in the United States is closely tied to the
women's rights movement. The field was originally male-dominated but became female-dominated by 1930 thanks to women accepting lower wages (cough* still fighting over that one). As women gained the ability to protest being "office wives" and not lose their jobs for protesting, coffee became a battleground for women's rights, as did the term "secretary" itself. In 2000, "administrative assistant" replaced "secretary" in the field's national association.
Seeing the Hallmark cards take over the grocery store card aisle made me think about how essential administrative assistants are - in almost every field. We need maintenance workers - blue and white collar - if we want to innovate. As performance artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles asked in her Maintenance Art Manifesto of 1969: "After the revolution, who is going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?"
(While I think about it, trash collectors merit their own week as well. Maybe that's another post.)
So next April I'm going to get (or make, since I'm the DIY type) some snazzy cards for my awesome friends who're administrative assistants. In the arena of hierarchical, male-dominated work, they're doing significant work to not just keep on the gears in our larger society, but move forward women's equality. And I am grateful.