April/May 1983 RAIN Page 25 A solution, or another example? Appropriate technology Technology is not value-free. The dominant male power structure controls society’s values and the technologies that implement them. Appropriate technology (AT) admits, by definition, to being value-laden. We know the tools of AT: small-scale and decentralized production of food and energy, recycling, conservation, renewable resources. WTiat works in cooperation with nature is considered "appropriate”: imitation of natural cycles, valuing wholes/ecosystems, and preserving and learning from them. AT is considered the "soft path,” "gentle” to the earth, "natural.” AT sounds good, sounds right; the assumptions are ours, the values are close to those of feminists: The gist of appropriate technology, therefore, is a concern not so much with the quantity of things as with the quality of life; about relating to each other and the earth’s resources with much more care. I think all of this is part of a more meaningful way to look at the world, guided by values such as self- reliance, decentralization, cooperation, and accountability. These are the values which are integral to appropriate technology and to the vision of a saner, more human world. —Isao Fujimoto Appropriate technology reminds us that before we choose our tools and techniques we must choose our dreams and values, for some technologies serve them, while others make them impossible. —Tom Bender But whose dreams, and who chooses? Women can be, and have been, kept out of appropriate technology as they have been kept out of "inappropriate” technology. Women find it hard to get support or training; it takes "too long” to teach women. Women are still regarded as consumers and often even chastised by appropriate technologists for this role they have been coerced into, told that if they could just control their spending, stop using their Pampers and their microwave ovens, all would be well. Appropriate technologists often forget the first tenet of AT: Since it deals specifically with questions of power and control, giving power to oppressed groups, including women, is a central issue within appropriate technology, because in order to be truly appropriate, something must be appropriate for everyone, not just for white males. If it’s not appropriate for women, it’s not appropriate. If it’s not appropriate for poor people, for minorities, it’s not appropriate, it’s simply passing the oppression on from one group to another. —Elizabeth Coppinger What is appropriate for women? Our needs define what is appropriate, and in the United States: 51% of our population is female. 51% of all working women are married. 50% of widows and single women exist on poverty level incomes. 40% of mothers with children under six are working. 74% of all husbands default in the first year of court ordered child support. 36% of all black families, 21% of all Hispanic families, and 11% of all white families are headed by women. Woman-headed households are 15% of all families, but 48% of all poverty families. 50% less income is eameld by women who head families than by males who head families. For every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 59 cents. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, with labor-saving devices, the average woman at home with one child spends more than eighty hours per week on household chores. In 1980 working women did an average of two hours and twenty-three minutes a day of housework, compared to twenty-five minutes a day for men, according to The Washington Post. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 1990 nearly two-thirds of women aged 20 to 34 will work outside the home. Those women come home to tend house. Who will tell them to "save energy” — to stop using fast foods, perma- press fabrics, electric dryers, and microwave ovens? For many women, giving up the family’s second car means giving up their mobility; for a poor woman, giving up her gas guzzler may mean her only mobility. For women doing double duty as a full-time worker and a full-time housekeeper, a microwave oven may be appropriate technology'. "Back-to-the-land” for women often means "back-to-the- kitchen” or "back-to-feudalism.” Even passive solar reThe dominant male power structure controls society’s values and the technologies that implement them. quires active human participation, opening and closing vents and shades. A wood or coal stove requires someone at home to feed it regularly. High technology saves women time and minimizes the importance of muscle strength. As Judy Smith of the Women’s Resource Center and the Women and Technology Network in Montana points out: Certain high level technologies may be necessary for women’s autonomy, and, if so, an emphasis on labor- intensive, decentralized technology could destroy women’s chances to move out of their tradition roles. Some parts of the AT movement advocate abandoning centralized, energy-intensive technologies, while others prefer to maintain some of the technologies that characterize Western lifestyles. So far the effect of technology on women’s role has not been included in AT theorists’ determination of which technologies are appropriate. Again, society has options for solving the technological problem. The t3q)ical pattern is to create more technology — nuclear power plants, synfuels, giant solar satellites — to perpetuate the existing system and keep women — and men — addicted consumers. Another option, social solutions to technological problems What if everyone had equal responsibility for child raising? What if we had a national policy for maternity, paternity, parenting leaves? For encouraging flexible working arrangements and part-time and shared employment? For child care for whoever needed it?
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