Opinion/Editorial
IN THE YEAR 2525
Let’s go back. Way back. Not to the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. Let’s go back to times that were oh so real, oh so hard, short, and painful. Let’s go back to only twenty-five thousand years ago when the special nature of Homo sapiens allowed their socialization and group behavior to begin and eventually dominate the planet.
Part of the key to developing the social skills allowing cooperation to overcome much more powerful isolated forces a deal was struck between males and females. Certain tasks would fall to females and other tasks would fall to males. Almost exclusively. Women scrounged for fruit, berries and roots and then returned to camp in order to cook, tend to leathers, furs, and the upbringing of the young. Men went forth to hunt, because the highest return food for nutrition and energy available at the time was cooked meat. There was cooperation and a very distinct division of labor, respect, and leadership. Both sexes worked but the males filled almost all leadership roles, on the hunt, trading, moving geographically and even at the tasks women performed at the camp.
Twenty-five thousand years ago. Yesterday. Today. Does the above paragraph seem to fit into a rather rough sketch of the way things are today?
It does. How many women serve in high positions near the president? How many serve in the House of Representatives, the Senate or as governors of states? One hundred and two (102) out of a possible six hundred and three (603). Females have leadership in about fifteen percent of all available leadership positions, yet women make up over fifty two percent of the entire American population!
Are things improving to allow women more decision-making power? No, they are not. The rise of the conservative right has allowed republican owned mass media to distort nearly everything. This week in the New York Times you will find an article written by a columnist named Douthat. He is supposedly a progressive intellect, yet he writes about how pro-abortion forces are comprised of great numbers of women who lean toward feminism (the derogative term used to describe women who openly state they want more power). Such lies, as Douthat is directly stating with New York Times support, continue to undermine the chances of women to enjoy leadership positions and for our culture to enjoy the benefits of their occupying such positions. The ‘hunters’ of any tribe lean heavily, through history, toward the use of violence for the adjudication of almost all disputes. The ‘gatherers’ of the tribe have been less historically oriented to use violence. There is little question, following WWII, wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan, that our culture would be much better served if it was allowed to have the benefit of less bellicose voices in making decisions for the entire country.
Women make less money than men in our culture because men have the power and will not allow them more. Women are treated as barely believable or questionable witnesses in almost all sexual crimes perpetrated upon them. Women are consistently ‘given’ new opportunities that merely allow them to be less powerful or even to be maimed or killed (as the new ‘ability’ to serve in frontline combat units).
If America is to actually be able to accommodate the social skills necessary to do what is required for the advancement of all of us on this new changing filed of planetary play, then allowing women to be leaders is not going to cut it. We will fail. We must do something much more proactive. We must seek women out and make sure that they understand that our future existence here is a big part of their leadership responsibility. Men are not going to ‘give’ them much. Women are going to have to take more power.
If women do this, we will all profit and enjoy untold success. If women are unable to then we are going to die. It is just a matter of time. From a great old rock and roll song: “In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive…”
