Machinery of Dominance: Women, Men, and Technical Know-How

Cockburn, Cynthia. Machinery of Dominance: Women, Men, and Technical Know-How. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, foreword to US edn. London: Pluto, 1985. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1988.

Sociologist CC examines "technologies of production" in a number of workplaces in Britain and concludes that, at least up through the 1980s in industrialized economies, "women are to be found in great numbers operating machinery," even as in the electro-mechanical era of production, "But women continue to be rarities in those occupations that involve knowing about what goes on inside the machine. The electronic revolution" of the computerized workplace" is making little difference" in changing sexual inequalities (8, 11, 13). Contrast optimism of P. McCorduck, cited this Category.