Women Organizers of the First Professional Associations in Technical Communication

Technical Communication Quarterly Apr 2015

Women Organizers of the First Professional Associations in Technical Communication

Edward A. Malone Missouri University of Science and Technology

Abstract

Women technical communicators helped to organize many of the first professional associations for technical communicators in the 1940s and 1950s. For some of these women, organizing was an occupational closure strategy of revolutionary usurpation: They may have hoped to position themselves favorably to shape a future profession that was not predicated on hidden forms of their inclusion. Exclusionary and demarcationary forces, however, seem to have ultimately undermined their efforts, alienating some of them and inducing others to adopt a strategy of inclusionary usurpation. In addition to using gender-sensitive revisions of occupational closure theory to explain the phenomenon of the woman organizer, the author chronicles the emergence of 8 professional associations for technical communicators and identifies the women technical communicators who helped to organize them.

Journal: Technical Communication Quarterly
Published: 2015-04-03
DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2015.1001291
Open Access: Closed
Topics: technical communication

Citation Context

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Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
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