ABSTRACT
The experiences reported in Chapter 4 can suggest many paths to take. I learned that to understand gender and technology we must also study the influence of military institutions in our workplaces, in engineering education, and in our everyday erotic lives. In this and the next chapter I look at a particular kind of workplace and at related technical education. Cooperative workplaces offer a contrast to militarylike organization of work; They provide potential sites of peace conversion activity (Melman 1987). They can declare that all members are workers, all workers are members, with one vote each. They can jointly decide what to make or sell and how, share most of the profits, and give the rest back to the community for child care, health, and education. They might rotate management positions; they might choose directors by lot, to maximize the sharing of skills and information. Cooperative workplaces could also require gender equality and a nonhierarchical administrative apparatus.
