Shadell wrote:The result is the innovation. A cause may prompt innovation. Besides the point, post-fordism; the idea that transportation can be less expensive then labor and thus spreading out the production process over a global scale, is an innovation. Yes, it largely owes itself to increasing transportation abilities, but, to state that only one thing in a chain is a true innovation seems flawed.
Just because suffrage was a form of innovation doesn't mean feminization of the work force can't be a further innovation. The fundamental nature of progress is that it keeps happening, building upon previous work. Ultimately everything in human society can be linked as a result of something else. Does that make the result less important? No. It simply establishes a relationship.
The problem is that innovation is victim to various interpretations, within or without certain contexts.
What I commonly see is the failure to differentiate innovation from development, otherwise innovation, development and progress ultimately share the same meaning. I don't believe that they do. To me, progress is movement forward, whether it be due to something great or small. I use innovation and development to label which form of progress is either size/scope.
Consider it the difference between a leap and a step, or a splash and a ripple. I consider women's rights to be a leap/splash, because it made significant and new changes throughout many areas. I consider the feminization of the work force a part of a natural course following that innovative change, steps/ripples that may not have taken place in quite the same way, had there not been that leap/splash.
I don't know how else to put what I think about it.
