User:Omnisays/sandbox

Alana Macfarlane
Alana Macfarlane (born in 1952 in San Rafael, California) was one of the first female telephone installers. She first starred in a two-page print ad for AT&T in 1972 at the age of twenty.

The print ad titled "The phone company wants more installers like Alana Macfarlane" by Cadwell Davis Company was such a big deal. It appeared in Life magazine and many other publications at the time. She was tall, young and interested working outdoors rather than sitting in an office job. Engineers, mostly male dominated, became a new field for women to pursue. AT&T welcomed both male and females to be just like Alana Macfarlane. They also stated they are "equal opportunity employer" which opened the doors for more women to explore work outside the home.

In February 2010, she and her sister participated in an interview with a blogger by the name of CaloriesTransFat. The interview was about Macfarlane's story after the print ad. All the fame and jealousy soon became a downfall for her, leading her to quit her job as a phone installer.

She then went into the U.S Air Force where she met her first husband and then obtained a degree in engineering. She landed a job at Piano Disk where she continued her engineer passion. After four years she moved on to company Level One later bought by Intel. She made her dreams come true succeeding in these employers and expanding her experience in the engineering field as a woman.

Now, Macfarlane is at home focusing on being a wife and mother to her teenage daughter. Her mental disability keeps her at home and away from working.

Advertising to the American Woman, 1900-1999
Before the 1970's, advertisements usually captured women based on their martial status, age, and occupation. Many advertisements only included work spaces that women were significant to such as nurses, the homemaker/wife, and beautician. She would be smiling and normally caring for someone - a patient, customer, child and/or husband. Moving into the 1970's women were more and more beginning to be seen in work spaces which were exclusive men as the working woman. One being Alana Macfarlane in the 1972 AT&T ad campaign. She wasn't dressed in feminine clothing or seen in an office or department store. She was twenty feet high on a telephone pole dressed in a basic white shirt, jeans, and what had to be sturdy boots in order to climb that high. At this time, it would be men doing this type of handy work and climbing onto things as their job. Not only was this to demonstrate the Bell System as an equal opportunity occupation, but also to show women are now visible in what was typically male dominated work spaces.

According to Advertising to the American Women, 1900-1999 author Daniels Delis Hill draws on this shift saying “There was no shortage of secretaries, nurses, office clerks, teachers, stewardesses, and phone operators depicted in ads during this decades - overwhelmingly presented as young and presumably unmarried. Certainly some of these women had to work for economic reasons, but most were viewed merely as filling space until their wedding day” (p 189). Women began to take on work as their own and become financially independent or an additional person bringing money into the home. At this time, a large sum of women held full-time jobs yet their privileges were only exercised in the home. They were still the mother or wife first before the phone operator or scientist.

These inequalities had symbolically gathered women together to represent themselves in a larger social space. They began to voice their opinion and demand equal rights in the workplace. They really wanted to reinforce what equal opportunity is be able to take full advantage of that. This opened paved the way for women of color to voice their opinion and their struggles trying to get a full-time job. This wasn't about race, age, or martial status. This movement was about all women trying to be just as equal and recognized as significant as men in the labor force.