Causal Relationship Between Women and the Telephone - Essay Example

Causal relationship between women and the telephone Section Number of Causal relationship between women and the telephone Introduction The word ‘telephone’ comes from the Greek word ‘tele’ meaning ‘from afar’, and ‘phone’ meaning ‘voice’ or ‘sound’. Invented in 1876 by Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone is defined as “an apparatus for reproducing sound, especially that of the voice, at a great distance, by means of electricity; consisting of transmitting and receiving instruments connected by a line or wire which conveys the electric current.” (Farley, 2001) Early telephones were not networked through exchanges. Telephones were leased in pairs to subscribers and a line was set up between the two communication points. Subscribers who wanted to communicate with more than one point had to obtain and set up as many pairs of telephones as the number of communicating points. Telephone technology was restricted to domestic lines. It was Western Union which first used telephone exchanges to interconnect individual subscribers in 1878. Alexander Graham Bell’s Bell Telephone Company was quick to incorporate the concept of telephone exchanges. Though the Bell Telephone Company was supposed to have monopolized the telephone business for more than 15 years since its invention, there were nevertheless as many as 1,730 telephone companies operating during the period. In the initial days, the most serious contender tot Bell’s monopoly was Western Union which had bought patents from others who had designed variations of Bell’s original principle of telephone, and had created the American Telephone Company as early as in December 1877. Had Bell not own the patent infringement case against Western Union in the Supreme Court of America in 1879, Western Union, with its large telegraph network already in place, was poised to overtake the Bell Telephone Company within a very short period of time. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was set up in 1885 to provide long-distance service to American Bell Company subscribers. The Bell Telephone Company had been expanded and rechristened the American Bell Company in the meantime. The first automatic commercial exchange began operating in 1892. By the turn of the century, independent telephone companies were fast overtaking the American Bell Company. In 1889 the first public coin telephone had been set up in Hartford, Connecticut. These were attended payphones with the payment collected by someone standing at hand. The invention of the electron tube in 1906 by Lee De Forest made amplification possible and led the way to national phone service. The subsequent development of vacuum tubes and triodes saw the introduction of commercial long-distance radio-telephone service between United States and the Great Britain in 1927. It was soon extended to Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt and Kenya, and would ultimately span the whole world. The introduction of the transistor in 1948 revolutionized the telephone industry. The first digital switchboard started functioning in 1978 ushering in the age of digital telephony which enables transmission of live images along with voice. By the late eighties, development in wireless technologies had made it possible for the mobile phone or the cell phone to cross over from its domain of restricted use by exclusive networks belonging to security and military organizations to general use by the public. Voice over IP (VoIP) is the latest technology that provides for telephony over the Internet. The fact that the telephone has undergone a continuous process of evolution, development and extension is testimony to its ever increasing utility and popularity. In the present developed world, the telephone is the most ubiquitous piece of equipment in the office, at home and in every imaginable place of activity, be it stationary or mobile, from where people would want to talk to other people at a distance. People use the instrument to execute a wide range of tasks from placing orders and shopping, holding discussions, passing vital information, ensuring security to just ‘keeping in touch.’ The telephone has become an essential instrument in the lives of people. The scope of utilization of the telephone was however not realized when it was first invented and put to use. “Capitalists considered the telephone only to be a means of facilitating business activity or to link the businessman to his office when he chose to stay at home.” (Martin, 1991, pp. 50) Behind each phase in the development and extension of the technology of the telephone is the discovery of some new way of utilization of the telephone or some new way in which the telephone could be put to use. Yet another quirk in the history of the telephone is that though it was initially seen as a technology to be used exclusively by men, and its use by women was scoffed at as “women’s use of men’s technology would come to no good end,” it would be women who would constantly push the limits of the technology by discovering new usages of the telephone. The response to wider and newer areas of applications of the telephone is manifest in further development and advancement in the technology to meet the needs of these new areas of applications. The benefit was however mutual. A woman used the telephone in ways which made her work easier and less tedious and monotonous. It enabled her to reach out, to achieve more freedom and expand her range of activity even while being confined to her home. It opened up new avenues of entertainment and business for her; it made her live more colorful and interesting as a whole. This causal relationship between the telephone and women leads directly to the thesis statement of this paper: All through its colorful history, it has been women who have set the trend for telephone usage and innovatively revealed new areas of application of the technology. The result has been mutually beneficial – new areas of application entailed further development of the technology; and the technology itself helped women to make their work easier, widen their areas of activity, break free of many shackles of society and make life more interesting. The objective of this paper is to trace this causal relationship between women and the telephone and examine it from different theoretical perspectives that involve the study of women and gender. Technology development in response to use The initial prescribed use of the telephone was for communication related to official or business matters which were generally deemed to be the exclusive preserves of men. Telephone connections were established between different businesses to maintain communication on business matters. A man installed a telephone connection between his home and business so that he could remain in contact with his business when he was at home. However, the presence of the telephone in the home would naturally have led to its use by the wife. Since there were no telephone exchanges at the time, it is obvious that use of the instrument by women would have been severely restricted. Even when groups of businessmen interconnected their businesses and homes through a single line so that conversation was possible between women in the different households, the telephone was considered too precious for idle use by women. At the most, women were supposed to use the telephone for not more than a few minutes a day either to order supplies or to organize social events. The use of telephone time by women for chatting with friends or relatives was considered extremely wasteful, and was usually censured. From a social constructionist perspective, the concept of the telephone as an instrument meant for use primarily by men is founded on the stereotyping of women as a gender that is incapable of participating in business. Other factors that could have contributed to restraining women from using the telephone was the belief that they indulged more in useless banter than men and would therefore misuse the telephone. In the late Victorian age, privacy was another issue that impeded the use of the telephone. This, however, was not restricted to women alone. The introduction of telephone exchanges, the bad quality of the wires resulted in cross connections so that people could eavesdrop on the conversation of others. Then there were the telephone exchange operators who could always listen in to telephonic conversations. The ruling classes were particularly concerned with this lack of privacy, and held the working women exchange operators responsible for a larger part of such infringement. Automatic exchanges and the use of good quality wires finally eliminated the eavesdropping, but the threat of deliberate wiretapping remained. Yet, the very factors that were considered to be negative aspects of the telephone in many ways contributed to increase in usage of the telephone by women. “The fact was that late-Victorian women were caught off guard. The barriers that their society had built to preserve privacy did not work with the telephone, and there was no time to construct new ones. Yet, in spite of this inconvenience, women continued to use the telephone, and the system developed rapidly, especially from the early 1900 onwards.” (Martin, 1991, pp.55) The telephone enabled women to do her shopping from home. This was a great advantage. Women did not have to run around getting the essentials items to run households but could order them from the comforts of the home. Business houses and shops soon realized the importance of women as tele-consumers and began targeting them in their advertisements both over the telephone and otherwise. They encouraged women to shop over the telephone and made necessary arrangements in order to facilitate women to do so. “…telephone shopping represented an increase of sales coupled with a reduction of labor in the form of messengers.” (Martin, 1991, pp.55). Lengthy telephonic chats were condemned prior to 1890 and disapproved before 1900. However, by 1911, advertisements promoting the telephone as “a very comforting thing to call friends and relatives … and have a fine chat,” began making their appearances (Martin, 1991, pp.55). The telephone began to be presented as a cure for the loneliness that women faced at home, as a means of overcoming stress and fatigue by remaining in contact with friends and relatives. Advertisements of the Bell Telephone Company also laid stress on the fact that the telephone provided security, especially to women, as it could be used to call for assistance or help. This was an acknowledgement of the utility of the telephone in the domestic sector. It expanded the horizons of usage of the telephone. The telephone was no longer restricted only to use in businesses, in urban areas or by the affluent and powerful. It transcended all social, economic and location barriers. Telephone companies had to extend their networks to the residential localities of urban areas, to rural areas and to reach out to all sections of the society that could afford the instrument. A proliferation of small and independent telephone companies which provided cheap connectivity forced the Bell Telephone Company in the United States to develop technologies that could cater to a much wider spectrum of subscribers spread over a much larger geographical area. The use of the telephone for sociability by women therefore helped in the extension and development of the technology as a whole. The benefits for women If the use of the telephone by women had helped in the development of the technology, the telephone has also been instrumental in providing women a sense of freedom and individuality. It has provided her with accessibility and the reach that is essential for her to fulfill the responsibilities that society expects from her as a woman. Smoreda & Licoppe (2000, pp. 238) state that the telephonic communication is more suited to a woman because of her family role and identity focusing on close relationship and expressiveness. Researches have found that there are gender differences in patterns of self-disclosure. During interactions, women disclose more than men, particularly about intimate topics (Dindia & Allen 1992). This fact could also lead to more intensive use of a two-way media such as the telephone. The division of labor in the household makes the woman responsible for tasks such as shopping and organizing social events. Tasks to accomplish which the telephone can be used effective and efficiently. Social network studies have also revealed that women and men differ considerably in who they maintain contact with though not in the number of persons that constitute their social network. In particular, womens personal networks—even when variables related to work, family, and age are controlled--contain more and larger proportions of kin as well as more types of kin (Moore, 1990). Di Leonardo (1987) has reported, women in couples often have greater knowledge about kin, even including the husbands kin. This would suggest that maintaining family solidarity and continuity of contact is more a responsibility of the woman than of the man. It is also accepted that women give and receive more emotional support from other close women in their network as demonstrated by examples such as the Wellman study (1979). The gender composition of the personal networks of men and women are therefore different. Men rarely have women friends, and in general their networks contain few women except relatives (Wellman & Wortley, 1990). In contrast, womens networks are composed mainly of other women (Cochran et al., 1993). All these factors contribute to the gender-specific use of the telephone. Women used the telephone to their advantage. Maintaining social contacts through telephones had several advantages, the most obvious of which was that it replaced physical visits. In some ways it was a great relief in the 1890s when making a visit would involve harnessing the horses, traveling by carriage, arranging a reliable travel companion, preferably the husband, and getting into elaborate dresses that required considerable investments in time, effort and money. Women used the telephone in ways that were considered quite unethical and scandalous at the time, but nevertheless served to meet the objective of establishing new ways of communication and social interactions. This was very evident in the popularity of ‘party lines’ of small rural telephone service providers in which people could listen in on the conversations of others. People usually listened to ongoing conversations and often broke in with their own comments on the topic under discussion. This was not seen as eavesdropping but rather as participating in community life. Though few would admit that they regularly listened to the conversations of others, it was a fact accepted by the majority. Women would often request the operator to connect multiple lines and hold them open so that an issue could be discussed by more than two parties. The party lines were the precursors of tele-conferencing technology of today in which multiple users take part in telephonic discussions. Party lines were also used to comfort the sick. In such cases the receiver would be placed on the pillow of the sick so that he or she could listen in on the ensuing conversations and be informed of all that was happening in the society. “These examples show some women’s initiatives to decrease the loneliness they felt in their isolated homes. For them, the telephone was a means of staying in touch with the rest of the community.” (Martin, 1991, pp.62). Ongoing process The process of innovative use of the telephone by women and the consequent technology development has continued to the present times. The mobile phone has provided a new sense of security to women. “Women in several cities said that the mobile made them feel safer, more confident, and in control, and were particularly keen to emphasize the value of the mobile as a phone-shield against unwanted attentions.” (Plant, 2001, pp. 62) In response to the security requirements of women, many mobile phone manufacturers have developed software that enable women to transmit alerts or security calls when they face threatening situations. This is also true in the case of older women who felt more confident with a mobile phone as it provided a sense of security and safety when they were alone (Kurniawan, 2006) An interesting study on the use of mobile phones with cameras by women comes to the conclusion that in the hands of women, the camera phone finds multi utility. It is used for one’s own private pleasure, as a tool for conversation, a tool to play with acquaintances, and a tool to experiment with ways of self-presentation and self-expression (Lee). Conclusions Women have therefore contributed to the development of the technology of the telephone indirectly by finding new and innovative uses for the telephone; and the telephone as has, on its part, not only opened up new avenues of social interactions for women but has also aided women in carrying out many of her responsibilities. The telephone has accorded women greater freedom and security. The relationship between women and the telephone also proves that women have been largely successful in discarding the false ideas and labels that have been associated with telephone usage by women. References -01 1. Cochran, M., Larner, M., Riley, D., Gunnarsson, L., Henderson, C., R., Jr., 1993, Extending Families: The Social Networks of Parents and Their Children, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2. Di Leonardo, M., 1987, The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families and the Work of Kinship, Signs 12:440-53. 3. Dindia, K., Allen. M, 1992, Sex Differences in Self-Disclosure: A Meta- Analysis, Psychological Bulletin 112:106-24. 4. Farley, T., 2001, Telephone History Series, Private Line’s Telephone History, pp. 1 5. Kurniawan, S., 2006, An Exploratory Study of how Older Women use Mobile Phones, School of Informatics, The University of Manchester. 6. Lee, D-H., Women’s Creation of Camera Phone Culture, Fibreculture, The Journal, ISSN 1449-1443, [Online] Available. http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue6/issue6_donghoo.html 7. Martin, M., 1991, The culture of the telephone, Inventing Histories, 8. Moore, G., 1990, Structural Determinants of Mens and Womens Personal Networks, American Sociological Review 55:726-35. 9. Plant, Dr. S., 2001, The effects of mobile telephones on social and individual lives, On the Mobile, Motorola. 10. Wellman, B., 1979, The Community Question, American Journal of Sociology 84:1201-31. 11. Wellman, B., Wortley, S.,1990, Different Strokes from Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support, American Journal of Sociology 96:558-88. Read More