In old days, when a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as something so shocking as to dis

tract the serious work of an office, secretaries were men.

Then came the First World War and the male secretaries were replaced by women. A man's secretary became his personal servant, in charge of remembering his wife's birthday and buying her presents; taking his suits to the dry-cleaners; telling lies on the telephone to keep away people he did not wish to speak to; and, of course, typing and filing and taking shorthand.

Now all this may be changing again. The microchip(芯片) and high technology is sweeping the British office, taking with it much of the routine clerical(文书的) work that secretaries did.

"Once office technology takes over generally, the status of the job will rise again because it will involve the high-tech work and then men will want to do it again. "

That was said by one of the executives(male) of one of the biggest secretarial agencies in this country. What he has predicted is already under way in the U. S.

Once high technology has made the job of secretary less routine (乏味的) , will there be a male takeover？ Men should be careful of thinking that they can walk right into the better jobs. There are a lot of women secretaries who will do the job as well as men—not just because they can buy negligees(妇女长睡衣) for the boss's wife, but because they are as efficient and well trained to cope with word processors and computers as men.

Before 1914 female secretaries were rare because they______.

A．were less efficient and less trained than men

B．were looked down upon by men

C．would have disturbed the other office workers

D．wore stockings and were not as serious as men