A typewriter and a phone are tools. So is a copy machine, a fax, a scanner, a pencil sharpener, scissors, staplers, etc.

Men just don’t recognize them as tools because of that gender bias.

It’s like with art. When women create art, it’s called a craft. When men create art, it’s high art and therefore worth spending ridiculous amounts of money on.

Sometimes the bias comes first, and then the linguistic designation that leads to unfair treatment.

Because women use ‘office supplies’ instead of tools, their job as a secretary is not worth the same as, say, a warehouse packer even though he too is using a tape dispenser, a label maker, a stapler, a printer, etc. So she has to be able to multitask and often have specialize skills (particularly historically) and she makes less than or the same as a guy with no special skills who basically puts a box together, packs it, tosses in a printed off bill of lading and slaps a mailing label on it.

That’s because men use tools. But women use office supplies.

It’s a common linguistic slight of hand to devalue the work of women. Those things are all over the place.