“This is a computer?” – Datacomp Web Technologies
To be fair, the machine does look more like a typewriter than a computer. We can show it to any man or woman born in the 90s or later, and they might ask the same question. In fact, even personal computers from the 80s did not look like that. Where is the monitor?
The Datacomp 404 is a digital processor (yes, it is a computer even with the missing monitor) that was considered small but with big computer features, and this was a massive step in technology and innovation many decades ago. However, the 1960s ad by Datacomp did not endorse how amazing their new product was as well as they did in typecasting secretaries in the office.
Sadly, at a time when office machines were modernizing the workplace, the promotional ad did women no favors. Wearing a short dress that flaunted her long legs, this ad stereotyped a woman’s role as the all-powerful CEO’s sexy secretary—yet another depiction of a man’s superiority over women, not just in the household but also in the workplace. We wonder if the woman in the picture had to go home from a submissive workplace environment to an abusive domestic environment.