Brains Rule, OK?
We are not our foremothers
Our ancestors are the survivers.
They made decisions that led to success.
Those decisions would have involved preferential treatment of PLU — people like us. Look after family, extended family, friends, the village, the wider community, and you are also looking after your own genetic heritage.
True examples of communities thriving without war or racial discrimination, are rare.
The ideal society?
Plato pays, in The Republic, lip service to gender equality. But, he also makes the point that if a society wishes to live in a state of prosperity, that means taking over the resources of other societies, and defending against others wanting to do the same to you.
And that means having a warrior class.
Men.
Sure, there were a few warrior women.
But, comparing the two genders, who tended to be more suited to combat? Men.
Women in times of war, are given the task of looking after the wealth of the state: the children, the cities, the farms.
The men try to fight on land that is not precious. Nothing ruins a farm so much as fighting a battle on it.
End. Then the warrior class get to make the decisions. In almost every nation, the head of state is also the nominal chief warrior. That’s because they used to be in actuality. A king who didn’t lead the army into battle didn’t keep his job.
We are the descendants of these people. Our societies are structured around male dominance and aggression, simply because any society that wasn’t, got taken over by one that was.
Kill the defeated men, rape the defeated women, keep the genes flowing.
We like to think that we are rational creatures. Plato liked to think this way.
But we as human beings are hardwired into aggressive male-dominated societies, and that’s a big rock for we modern folk to jump over.
Civilisation has changed. It’s no longer just the big lunks who get given a spear and sent off to war. Women can handle the technology of battle just as well as men. Same for modern work. About the only thing men are better at than women in today’s world is taking what they want.
That extends to ethnicity and racism. We don’t like to think that we prefer one body shape or skin colour over another, when we know that the minds inside are all the same.
But look at the evidence. Don Trump, a paragon of intolerance, is followed unthinkingly by millions. Where in god’s name is the logic and rational thinking in America’s leadership and his power base?
Those people are thinking with their genes.
There is no point in responding with hatred and blame. That’s playing the same vicious game.
The world will sort itself out, and what we as women can do best is to educate our children to see how things have changed. There are more rewards and sweeter fruit to pick for those who use their brains to work the new system.
Britni
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