As a a leggy, twenty-something blonde, Jacquee Storozynski-Toll usually had her male colleagues eating out of the palm of her hand. Yet one day she found herself bent over her boss’s knee being spanked, in full view of all of her colleagues.
And what was most remarkable about the whole scene? Of the dozens of co-workers who witnessed this seemingly outrageous act, not one batted an eyelid.
Nor did Jacquee launch a tribunal case against her company, or sue her boss for sexual harassment.
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Aa a leggy, twenty-something blonde, Jacquee Storozynski-Toll usually had her male colleagues eating out of the palm of her hand
Instead, she simply straightened her pencil skirt, smoothed down her hair and got on with her day, her cheeks — both sets — burning.
‘People were coming and going and no one stopped to ask what was going on,’ she recalls. ‘It was like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. You simply can’t imagine it now.’
That is certainly true. One can only imagine the heart attack it would induce in any modern-day Human Resources manager.
One day she found herself bent over her boss’s knee being spanked, in full view of all of her colleagues but chose to do nothing about it
But then this was the early Seventies, when bottom-pinching, drunken lunches and open office affairs were rife in the workplace. A blatantly sexist time when women’s lib was in its infancy.
These today deeply shocking attitudes were brought back in a Channel 4 documentary, Confessions Of A Secretary, shown last night, which explored the changing face of British offices through the relationship between bosses and their secretaries.
To a younger generation, some of the scenes recounted may seem positively neanderthal. Yet, astonishingly, many of the women featured in the programme claim that it was the best time ever to be a woman at work, and that the perks accorded to good-looking secretaries — being offered the boss’s Rolls-Royce and chauffeur to take you shopping for the afternoon, or wined and dined in the best restaurants — far outweighed any downsides.
Jacquee's experiences were in the early Seventies, when bottom-pinching, drunken lunches and open office affairs were rife in the workplace
Nor was it just women who took full advantage of the somewhat louche attitudes that prevailed in British offices in the Seventies.
Former public relations executive and advertising guru Lord Bell, 73 — the man behind Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ 1979 election campaign — admits that female employees were then regarded more as sex objects than equals.
Good-looking secretaries were a status symbol among managers, with men competing to hire the most attractive woman possible.
One of his superiors even persuaded a prospective secretary who had come in for interview to take her top and bra off so he could check her assets.
Jaquee, now in her 50s, remembers that it was certainly a struggle to be taken seriously as a woman in the workplace
‘He was convinced he should only employ someone with very large breasts, and he said to her suddenly in the conversation “can I have a look?” — and amazingly she said yes,’ he recalls.
Not content with that, he called in the rest of his colleagues — including the then Tim Bell — to partake of the view.
‘She didn’t mind in the slightest,’ he insists. ‘It’s a disgusting story that would now be considered unacceptable, but at the time it was considered funny. She got the job, of course.’
Jaquee, now in her 50s, remembers that it was certainly a struggle to be taken seriously as a woman in the workplace.
‘Often I was doing similar sort of work to the men, not that they would acknowledge it,’ she recalls. ‘Instead they were always trying to keep you in a particular place. Once they put a banner over my desk reading “Beware, she has A-levels”, or I’d return from lunch to find my desk turned round so the drawers faced the wrong way. If I complained they would say “typical woman, she can’t take a joke”.’
Raised in Dagenham, Jacquee embarked on general office work in her teens before landing a job as a secretary at a large multinational company
Raised in Dagenham, Jacquee embarked on general office work in her teens before landing a job as a secretary at a large multinational company, where she remained for almost two decades, rising to the role of assistant manager.
In her first department, she was the only woman among nine men, and as such was routinely belittled.
‘I remember being in a meeting and offering an opinion and someone said “Who cares what you think, you’re just a woman?” That attitude was pretty common,’ she says.
‘I’d often hear men saying: “I’ve never met a female manager who is any good” — to which I would reply that I knew an awful lot of male managers who weren’t any good either.’
If such put-downs didn’t work, Jacquee occasionally resorted to surreptitious violence to get her own back on sexist men. At one point she ground her stiletto heel into the foot of a colleague who had accused her of being stupid.
Jacquee’s colleagues assumed that both her brain and her career ambitions would be blunted by her maternal instincts
Jacquee’s colleagues assumed that both her brain and her career ambitions would be blunted by her maternal instincts.
‘I remember asking one boss about my career path in the Seventies and he told me I didn’t need one as I would be going off to have children.’
In fact, while Jacquee did take maternity leave to have children — Natalie, now 32, and 30-year-old Christopher — she returned to work shortly afterwards, continuing until she was made redundant in the late Nineties.
Despite being surrounded by eye-popping sexism, she confesses that there is lots about that time that she misses.
‘There was less pressure,’ she recalls. ‘Two-hour lunches weren’t uncommon. We had lots of celebrations where we would go for drinks for someone’s birthday and be out for hours and only return to the office to get our coats to go home. You certainly never heard about anyone complaining of stress.’
Jacquee did take maternity leave to have children but returned to work shortly afterwards, continuing until she was made redundant in the late Nineties
Nor did Judi Grossman, now 63, who spent the Seventies enjoying what she recalls as a carefree time in which long lunches and shopping were all part of a day’s work.
Raised on a farm in Essex, she went to secretarial college in London before spending the next five years temping, before giving up work in 1975 to raise her twin daughters, Kara and Vanessa, now 39.
‘There was work to be done, but not a lot of it,’ she says. ‘At quite a few of the places I worked if I told my boss I had a party in the evening he would say: “OK, go at 2pm.” ’ One even used to let me use his Rolls-Royce and driver to go shopping in the West End for the afternoon.’
It helped, of course, if you happened to be attractive — as Judi, then a bubbly brunette, undoubtedly was. ‘Looks did play a part,’ she admits. ‘If your boss liked you, you got away with murder — it was as simple as that. There was always a coterie of men who were happy to take you out to lunch.’
Some would, on occasion, attempt to take things further.
‘I remember being chased around a boardroom at a drinks party by a university lecturer I was working for at the time — but back then you just dealt with it. I just said “oh grow up” to him. It wasn’t a big deal.’
She admits that there were occasions when such high-jinks got a little out of control — like the time one of her senior managers stuck his hand up her skirt while she was taking a phone call.
‘I felt like clocking him but all I could do was glare at him. I certainly didn’t stop the call,’ she says. ‘It was outrageous, really. When I put the phone down I said: “Don’t you ever do that again.” And he didn’t — but he didn’t apologise either.’
Judi’s secretarial career ended after five years when she married and fell pregnant, although she returned to it for a few years in the mid-Eighties, taking up a role at a legal firm.
‘Things had changed markedly even in the space of a decade,’ she recalls. ‘It was already more serious, more stressful. In the end I left again. To be honest I never took work terribly seriously.’
Judi Grossman, now 63, spent the Seventies enjoying what she recalls as a carefree time in which long lunches and shopping were all part of a day’s work
Of course not all women starting out as secretaries in the Seventies were happy with the status quo.
Ros Altmann, now 58 and one of the country’s leading independent pensions advisers, as well as a Government Business Champion for older workers, first undertook secretarial work as a teenager.
She used the money she earned working for a large advertising agency, a law firm, a consultancy and estate agency to pay her way through university.
‘By and large I enjoyed it, but it also opened my eyes to the reality of life in the work-place,’ she says. ‘As a woman you were pretty much a second-class citizen, while the secretaries were almost seen as playthings. The men would have jokes about them in earshot — “Check out her boobs”, that sort of thing. And you were just expected to take it. If you were a young girl in an office environment back then you were fair game.’
Ros Altmann, now 58 and one of the country’s leading independent pensions advisers, as well as a Government Business Champion for older workers, first undertook secretarial work as a teenager
Indeed, some even believed it was an unwritten part of a secretary’s job description to let her boss have his wicked way with her — at least if she wanted to keep her job.
‘I know of at least one secretary who was fired because, effectively, her boss had asked her to sleep with him on three separate occasions and she had repeatedly said no,’ Ros recalls. ‘Next thing he told her she had to go and she was distraught.’
As a temp, the stakes were lower for Ros, although she still found herself on the receiving end of unwelcome advances: as a 19-year-old personal assistant, she recalls being asked to dinner by her married boss, who told her he wanted to ‘thank’ her for all her work.
‘It didn’t occur to me that it would be anything else but then he insisted on a quiet boozer and it became absolutely obvious what was going on. He started putting his arm around me and it was all “I can show you a really good time, I’ve got lots of money.”
55 per cent of employment tribunal cases in 2013 were related to sexual discrimination in the workplace
‘It didn’t matter that I had a boyfriend. It was just so blatant,’ she recalls.
‘I found it really sickening but I couldn’t say so.’
She was, she later learned, the latest in a long line of attempted conquests by her would-be paramour.
Ros, at least, went onto greener pastures: after studying economics at University College London she got a scholarship to Harvard and obtained a PhD at the London School of Economics before embarking on a career in the City.
And as the Seventies gave way to the Eighties, times were changing. By 1986 changes to the Employment Protection Act deemed sexual harassment to be a form of sexual discrimination — while the advent of new technology in the form of desktop computers started to blur the once clear-cut gender roles in the office.
Suddenly, as Jacquee recalls, sitting at a keyboard was seen as powerful and progressive, not menial.
‘In the old days if you said to a man “here’s a typewriter you can type some letters” they’d have refused point blank and said it was woman’s work,’ says Jacquee.
He started putting his arm around me and it was all “I can show you a really good time, I’ve got lots of money.” Ros Altmann, one of the country’s leading independent pensions advisers who first undertook secretarial work as a teenager‘Then all of a sudden it was “I’ve got my keyboard and I’m doing my typing”, rather self-importantly. Suddenly these rather senior men were typing all the day long. It made me laugh actually.’
When Jacquee was made redundant she shed few tears.
‘Office life had changed beyond recognition already. By then people were sitting at their desks with their sandwiches and a flask. And suddenly there was a thing called “stress” that was keeping people off work, which was unheard of before.’
Today, after studying for an English Literature degree as a mature student Jacquee makes her living as a writer, and confesses to a degree of nostalgia for the past.
‘The gender roles were much more prescribed, but in some ways it was a gentler time,’ she says.
Tim Bell is equally misty-eyed when it comes to the relationship between secretaries and their bosses, hankering after a time when, as he sees it, women were women — and men were allowed to appreciate them.
‘I do subscribe to the notion of the lady in the bun and the glasses who rips them off and reveals herself to be fantastically exciting,’ he says. A sentiment no doubt shared by many of his male contemporaries.
n Confessions Of A Secretary is still available on 4od, Channel 4’s online catch-up service.
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