This leads to a question I want to ask readers, educators, the government and the public. Should these courses be oriented towards the needs of the women taking them, or should they be run for the benefit of business? It was definitely my impression, while taking the course, that the needs of business took precedence over the needs of women. One of the two women who coordinated the program was definitely from a business background, with business values. This did not have to be a bad thing. It could have added a note of practical realism to the course. However, the message her business experience gave us was a negative one that I have heard voiced far too often in my working life. The boss is God. He or she has "earned the right" to dominate you. He/she is not interested in your petty concerns such as a need for respect, time to take care of your family, any problems that might take your attention away from the job. The seething stew of emotional life at home was of no consequence, nor was the problem of time to take care of the niggling practicalities of shopping, doctor's appointments, laundry, etc. (We were told to make our doctor's appointments after 4:00 p.m. even though every clinic in the community closed about that time.)

The other coordinator was from an education counseling background. She seemed, when questioned, rather embarrassed by her colleague's style with us, but she wasn't about to rock the boat. I suppose she had her own post-recession career anxieties to deal with.

There were many things wrong with the course. First, there was the "perfect secretary" list handed out by the typing instructor. I had taken a secretarial course twenty-one years before in which such hand-outs would not have been surprising. How naive I was to suppose that things had changed! I won't go through the whole list. The point that offended me most was, "Absolute loyalty to the boss."

Even more appalling was an incident that led to my walking out of the course and staying out until one coordinator and some friends and fellow-students talked me into going back. The more business-oriented of the two coordinators told our class that just because the boss might choose to "dress like a slob," it was not okay for us to do so. She went on to say that "the boss has paid his dues and earned the right to tell you what to wear." As well as rage, these words evoked in me a deep sadness. The room was not full of kids just out of high school who needed to be "put in their places" (if any of us ever do need that). It was filled with women whose average age was about thirty-five, most of whom were mothers. There wasn't a woman there who had not "paid her dues," and none of us deserved to be told we could be brow-beaten by some petty tyrant who by one means or another had become a "boss".

Class prejudice also played a part in our experience of the course. I am from a working class background. However, through my education I have learned how to act like a middle-class person. I believe that this was one of the reasons that, despite my rebellious comments in class and the afore-mentioned walking out, I was generally looked on with favor by the instructors.

A young woman who could not type at the beginning of the course and who could not type very fast by the end of it was a favorite student of the instructors. She was generally approved of because she had sensed the way to dress and behave that would gain the most approval. One of the instructors made it very clear that she considered this woman as the most likely to succeed.

Another young woman began the course with a typing speed of 25 words per minute, and she progressed to 40. A couple of the instructors, however, chose to impose on her their own single mother stereotype. Rita (I will call her) had a loudly working class persona. She did not participate in the "dressing for the office" game. Her previous paid employment had been as a barmaid. She had a two-year-old and constant childcare problems, yet she was determined to work and escape the "welfare mother" image. She had, in fact, worked whenever she could since her baby's birth. I got to know her as a generous person, always willing to go that extra mile to help somebody else. Her low self-esteem, however, had the usual effect of making her an easy scapegoat, as well as someone to be taken advantage of .