Gendered Typwriting

The Profound Sou nd of Ernest Hemingway's Typist: Gendered Typewriting as a Solution to the Problems of Communication
Kathleen F. McConnell - December 2008 - Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Vol 5 #4 pp. 325-343 ----There is no online article to access but I receive this journal and thought this article might be helpful for class project---

"As a gendered communication technology, the typpuewriter generated a perception of flawless and faithful transmission of ideas, data, thoughts, and feelings as they flowed from the hands of the typist to the keys onto the page"

"Unlike genealogies of literary genius, the history of the typist consists primarily of anonymous women known only by teh renowned proper nouns of their male employers. The anonymity of typists is due in part to teh perception that they did not work upon texts but merely served as an extension of the typing machine" p. 327

As McConnell notes the typewriter is one of several technologies associated with women that took on the gendered traits of its users -
Michele Martin's discussion of the history of the telephone is quoted, "the relationship between the operator and the machine was dialectical: the operator was becoming more and more of a machine, and the machine was increasingly considered 'feminine' becasue of the indispensable mediation of the operator"

The typewriter contributed to goals of communication technologies that could better serve perfect communicationn - where tech enhances understanding - and good communication promises the transparency of telepathy p.327
----McConnel sees gender not a problem for communication but rather as a solution to the percieved dangers of communication ---the typewriters association with feminity attempted to decrease misunderstandings - yet following McLuhan and Haraway she argues that miscommunication is productive - she says in order to embrace such a view of communication requires investigating gender norms and the ways that they are used to suppress pluralistic communication ----

The typewriter was hard to use, erased authroship and held the potential to change the original authors meaning. People who wanted to use the machine but were unable to type hired female typist.
"In possesing the means of communication, female typists only compounded problems by threatening to dispossess men of their ability to create and control discourse"p.328

"When applied typing technologies, ideals of femininty such as fidelity and devotion contained the potential typing technologies held for upsetting protocols and breaching security measures designed to control access to communication." p.339


"the typewriter generated more work producing and interpeting texts, adn the feminization of typing was a means of managing that industry. To dream of something other than this standardized industry requires re-imaging the function of gender performance within communication practices" p. 340