values that shape technology, that shape solar and determine its costs at both the production and consumption~ends of the cycle. The solution is in altering the present values of deathlove. At one of the "Women and Technology" workshops at the ACT Fair in Washington last spring, one of the panelists was a woman named Hadley Ann Smith, from the Mississippi R&D Center. I would like to share some of what she said. "We must be concerned ·as much about the forms of our communication as the content...•. It's about process, it's about expansionism, it's about simplifying our lives, it's about issues of cooperation at all costs instead of competition at,all costs, . . not more materialism and acquisition as expression of wealth and well-being, not by a controlling elite, where you have topdown management, with the people at the top calling the shots and the people at the bottom doing the work. It's about comprehensive planning, holistic thinking, shared cooperation.· We must not only apply these things to our immediate needs but to our environment as well. "While we have the capacity, however, I am very concerned that we do not have the will to make these changes in our values, to give up the push-button luxuries that we have learned to need. Unless our values change, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how powerful or alternative our vision is if we continue to jacket it in a top-down management format. "The bullies will always bully and the timid will always capitulate; both are parasitic to process thinking. The timid are just as guilty as those who bully." Technology does not exist outside of human values, and using the phrase human values tends to erase the fact that dominant values are male rather than generic. Do we dare forget that the reason for both technology and male megemony has been power-over and exploitation? Do we dare forget that anthropology-defined as the study of man-is precisely that, and that the course of history reveals no valid distinction between the development of man and the development of technology? Do we· dare suppress the shock of recognition we feel as women, hearing the twin litany, "mother earth/earth December 1979 RAIN Page 15 mother?" and witnessing our common exploitation and rape? Or do we ignore the meaning in the origins of the words "ecology" and "technology." Ecology, from the Greek oikos, household. Technology, fro·m the Greek Teknikos, or manmade. Such memories, I think, may make the connections among our movements a little clearer. To bring'all of this to some kind of conclusion, I believe that the business of appropriate technology, the business of environmentalism, the business of feminism is ultimately to change the dominant worldview, to shift ourselves from • death-oriented mastery and exploitation, to life-oriented empowerment and reciprocity. I believe that our movements completely and profoundly challenge the existing worldview. Together we question the motive force under which we live, the network of assumptions and values that govern our collective existence. . A worldview is best kn~wn by its actions. And the worldview, or motive force, we live under, and which connects us linearly to the past and laterally to most other cultures, is the ethic of domination and exploitatioh. Begun in what I believe to be the first dichotomy-male/rational vs. female/naturalthis values heritage will not alter until we find new and positive definitions for the fundamental links between women and nature, until men are compelled to recognize and affirm their place within the ecological cycle, and r~linquish their cosmic separatism. At any rate, the historical motif has been domination and exploitation. Our business as women in solar, as women in appropriate technology, is to change all that. Not to do away with technologies, but to redefine and ·reorient them. Not to ~eplace t~e power-over political struggle with another, changing only Its gender, but to redefine in all that we do the relation of people to people and people to earth. Quest: a feminist quarterly is devoting an upcoming issue to the politics of Women and Energy. Interested writers may query Quest for an outline of the questions and subject areas it hopes to address. Write to Quest, 2000."P" St., N.W., Suite 308, Washington, DC 20036. BUILDING means that deterioration of the materials themselves become limiting factors preservatiohists, historians, architects, building restorers, and material technologists. It's a goldmine of information on how brick, stone, paint, c~pper, wood and other materials deteriorate and practical techniques to preserve, conserve and restore them. Fine Woodworking deals centrally with the making of high quality fu~niture, but contains excellent technical articles, letPreseroation and Conseroation: Principles and Practices, National Trust'for Historic Preservation, 1976, $15 from: The Preservation Press ·1729 H Street N.W., Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006 Fine Woodworking, bimonthly, $12/ year, single copy $2.50, from: Tauton Press P.O. Box 355 Newtown, CT 06470 Valuing permanence in construction in a building's life and usefulness. Dealing with these problems and building wisely in respect to them requires that we know what really causes the failures. That requires 10 parts physics, 10 parts archeology, 10 parts construction experience, and 20 parts common sense. These two sources are the best I've found for the inner workings of good building. Preservation and Conservation is the result of an outstanding international conference of archeologists, ters and comments on sawmilling, working heavy timbers, finishing materials, etc.-all of course dealing with wood. - TB •
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