My office just upgraded\u00a0to Office 2007 - we didn't go to 2010 because of compatibility issues with other software.\u00a0 And I'll confess up front -- I'm a rut person.\u00a0 Actually, I'm a rut person's rut person.\u00a0 So new technology isn't something I adopt easily.\u00a0 But usually, I don't feel that the technology was designed to make me, as a woman, feel inferior.\u00a0 In fact, that feeling has never happened to me - until Office 2007.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It's all about the ribbon, which is an insidious device that seems designed to serve two evil purposes:\u00a0 (1) to hamper, harm, denigrate and deter women and (2) to drive women backwards in an effort to survive in the workplace.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ribbon is clearly a man's tool.\u00a0 It's mostly like designed by men for men and it's all about men.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because men are visual.\u00a0 They think in pictures.\u00a0 And what is the ribbon except a long string of pictures?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Women think in words.\u00a0 For women the drop down menus of older versions of Office were easy to understand and navigate.\u00a0 Well, that couldn't continue, could it?\u00a0 Women were already succeeding in terrifying numbers.\u00a0 That had to stop. So the software\u00a0mogul designed an improvement intended to drive women backwards while men advanced on the work front.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why does it drive women backwards?\u00a0 I'll bet one of the first acts of every woman who spent more than an hour trying to decode all the idiotic pictures on the ribbon did the same thing I did - a Google search for keyboard shortcut codes for 2010.\u00a0 And I can press control-w all day long to close documents, but every time I do it, I resent the heck out of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Microsoft isn't trying to be a sexist, anti-woman crusader - it should send users one of those updates that gives us the chance to get our menu bar back - and yes, I want \"edit\" back on that menu.\u00a0 Whoever thought it would be a good idea to take all the editing tools that were under one handy label and scatter them randomly on the ribbon from hell?\u00a0 Whoever it was, I'll tell you who it\u00a0wasn't - it wasn't a WOMAN.\u00a0 And don't get me started with out the company screwed up the \"view\" option.\u00a0 The\u00a0\"draft\" view is the normal view - or at least it is for WOMEN.\u00a0 Apparently\u00a0men can't make the mental adjustment to process the words and symbols on the\u00a0now-draft view.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So Microsoft -- if your goal is to drive women backwards - roughly\u00a0to the days of DOS - you're succeeding mightily.\u00a0 If your goal isn't to alienate women - who make a heck\u00a0of a lot of the software decisions in most offices - then you best readjust your thinking.\u00a0 The only thing your current sexist efforts will do is to drive women into the arms of your competitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Microsoft wants to serve the needs of all of its customers -- rather than\u00a0just the preferences of its male buyers - the company needs to send us an update that caters to women - THE SEGMENT OF THE POPULATION INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO THINK IN WORDS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My office just upgraded\u00a0to Office 2007 - we didn't go to 2010 because of compatibility issues with other software.\u00a0 And I'll confess up front -- I'm a rut person.\u00a0 Actually, I'm a rut person's rut person.\u00a0 So new technology isn't something I adopt easily.\u00a0 But usually, I don't feel that the technology was designed to ...continue reading \"Microsoft Office 07\/10: Is it a sexist effort to drive women backwards?\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2290"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2294,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290\/revisions\/2294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}