Jobs for the Girls: How We Set Out to Work in the Typewriter Age

by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

A unique take on women's history from the bestselling author of British Summer Time Begins

'Witty, clever and warm-hearted' The Times

'Maxtone Graham [has a] unique blend of high comedy and shrewd social observation' Spectator

'Terrific' Daily Telegraph

Drawn from real life, from interviews with women from all sections of society who have ever had a job, this book is a portrait of British women's working lives from 1950, through cardigans and pearls, via mini-skirts and bottom-pinching, to shoulder pads and the ping of the first emails (early 1990s), never forgetting overalls, aprons and uniforms.

Graham conveys the full range of to convey the flavour and atmosphere of workplaces in all their the jollities as well as the drudgeries, the good men as well as the vile ones, the nasty women as well as the heroines, the office crushes and romances, the daily drudgery, the lunch hours, the parties, the great piles of paper all over the place, the family-feel of workplaces, the daily burden of trying to run a household and family as in short, to look at all facets of this rich slice of British life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism

297 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 21, 2023

About the author

Ysenda Maxtone Graham was born in 1962 and educated at The King's School, Canterbury and Girton College, Cambridge. She has written widely for many newspapers and magazines, as features writer, book reviewer and columnist. She is the author of The Church Hesitant: A Portrait of the Church of England; The Real Mrs Miniver, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award; and Mr Tibbits's Catholic School. She lives in London with her husband and their three sons.

Reviews

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I did enjoy this, I learned some bonkers facts and figures about sexism and women’s opportunities (or lack of) in the decades before my mum was born and the ones she grew up in so it’s definitely given me a new found respect for women earning their own money. Equally it’s wild how even other women tried to limit girls education, it’s hard to comprehend in 2024!

I did feel like the ratio of super-toff to working class examples was about 80/20 though which was a bit alienating and the secretarial bashing, especially on page 294 “…in her smart skirt and blouse, how on earth did the young woman progress along that path to a more eminent form of existence?” Just pissed me off.

[Flora Varcoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shocking, fascinating and amusing in equal measure.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure if there was enough here for a whole book. I found it slightly repetitive and without a clear focus.

[Joshua Balding · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting anecdotes here, however there is a heavy focus on upper-class women. So many of the stories talk about rich fathers sending their daughters off to schools, girls attending Cambridge and Oxford. The book jumps about a lot, and can be hard to follow. There is a lot of pointless talking in this book, it probably could cut out 50 pages.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ysenda Maxtone Graham has hit upon a rich and popular seam of recent social history. Her books on girls’ experiences of boarding schools (Terms and Conditions) and boys’ and girls’ memories of school summer holidays (British Summer Time Begins) were revealing, often very funny and occasionally tragic. There’s a similar mix in Jobs for the Girls, her oral history of women’s work in what she calls ‘the typewriter age’, that is, roughly from the Fifties to the end of the Eighties. Like its predecessors, Jobs for the Girls is by no means an academic history and it has no aspirations to be so, but it is a thoroughly entertaining guided tour through a period of substantial social change in which the voices of many women about the highs and the lows of their entry into the world of work are given due prominence and celebrated. As some other reviewers have observed (and this is also true of her other books), there is a slight preponderance of voices from the middle and upper-middle classes, but as they have some great stories to tell (education of girls being such a low priority for many of their families that they were often hopelessly unprepared for any kind of paid employment) it hardly matters in a popular history of this kind.
The most striking fact that emerges from Jobs for the Girls is the rapid decline and near-extinction of the typist/secretary; for years one of the main sources of employment for young women from all classes, to, dying out over a few years in the late Eighties, and all but gone by the start of the Nineties. But by that time, fortunately, whole new worlds of work were opening up for women.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting concept for a book, but disappointing in execution. It is yet another example of post-war women's history that centres solely on white straight women, there is a passing mention at one point of how one hospital refused to take on non-white nurses but other than that the experience of ethnic minorities and queer women go wholely investigated.

I feel that this book to a large extent, suffers from having to many women appear; the book flits from one individual to another and back again which makes it difficult to form an overall picture of any of them.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following on from her book British Summertime Begins, Ysenda Maxtone Graham explores the career opportunities - or otherwise - for women of all classes from the 1950s to the early 90s and the arrival of emails. It was very interesting, although I was horrified to read that it was as late as the mid-70s before single women were eligible to get mortgages on their own, even if they had a sizeable income. Things have improved since then, but I think we've still got a fair way to go before the sexes are fully treated as equals.

[Sabrina AD · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think a more accurate title for this book would be 'jobs for upper class girls from the south'. I have no issue with speaking about your experience and the experiences of people you know but universalising it ain't if chief.

[Julia Deptuła · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting, albeit often slightly chaotic! Really loved this book!! Very informative and the narration style really allows the reader to feel a part of the history!! Only negative was the slightly chaotic style of referencing previously mentioned memories/ interviews- seemed really random and disjointed, which often was slightly frustrating.

Overall great book- will definitely reach for the author’s other works. I’m even quite excited to do so!