<story><title>Why the First Laptop Had Such a Hard Time Catching On</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/why-the-first-laptop-had-such-a-hard-time-catching-on-hint-sexism/262220/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dsr_</author><text>How many secretaries do you see on _Mad Men_?&lt;p&gt;The big boss might have two. Everyone is who is anyone has his own. You are clearly a junior manager if you share a secretary. Only the peons type.&lt;p&gt;This changed. It changed slowly. For years, senior people did not type their own email, or even read it on a screen. A secretary would print it out, and the exec would dictate, live or to a recorded, any responses. Did the exec know how to type? No. Why should he? Having a keyboard is a sign that you don&apos;t have any power.&lt;p&gt;Long nails indicate that you don&apos;t do manual work. High heels mean you don&apos;t walk long distances. An expensive watch means you can afford one -- it tells the time about as accurately and about as reliably as a mid-priced or cheap watch.&lt;p&gt;How does it change? Very simply: when the people who are high-status do a certain thing, people who want to be like them copy it. When technical entrepreneurs became rich, people copied them. Do successful Wall Streeters carry Blackberries? Everybody else did, too.&lt;p&gt;Status, yes. And sexism, too: typing is women&apos;s work. Low status.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why the First Laptop Had Such a Hard Time Catching On</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/why-the-first-laptop-had-such-a-hard-time-catching-on-hint-sexism/262220/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>forgottenpaswrd</author><text>More than sexism it is statusism.&lt;p&gt;I could understand secretaries instantaneously loosing respect if they see their bosses typing with one finger.&lt;p&gt;It happened to me with one operator of a lathe when he discovered I had no idea or cared how to program it because I was &quot;engineer&quot;(I had other work to do). I had to study the thing on a weekend for regaining the respect from those people on my team.&lt;p&gt;Imagine being in the war and your life depends on a person(e.g a sergeant) and the only thing you know about this person is that he is incompetent on what you know to do well... not good.</text></comment>