For those who wonder how the imbalances America and the world has inherited with male dominance and race, gender and class biases began; the following summative overview may help.
As people moved away from nomadic behaviors in search of food and resources for survival, the concerns of generating and evolving their resources for safety and nourishment evolved. Access to water, security, stability and growth of the community families through social education and expansion of their dominion became a focal point. Those who could guarantee levels of protection for agriculture, animal husbandry and a fixed place to live which included culling of access to resources became leaders. Thus established the process for social hierarchy, followed by social contracts or personal and family allegiances that provided safety, security and the ability of the community to grow itself through family reproduction.
Expansion of territory meant new changes of status, which came with recognized leadership, entitling and awarding chieftains other heads of clans and land. Over time, as people became more settled; e.g. rather than chasing food but growing food and settling into permanent communities of place; families pledged their allegiance to the leader of the community who became recognized as the sovereign lord, baron or king depending on the strength of rule and size of the land. This level of functional development has the same basic elements across Europe, China, Japan and other parts of the world. Sovereign lords (kings) were the protection of the people; they provided military security for the established lifestyle, the key in the social contract for any clan or community.
The historic Magna Carta, a constitutional document was the political enfranchisement of equity between the king or sovereign lord of England, the land owners (called feudal barons) and the common people. This charter which limited the arbitrary will of the king and protected the rights and entitlements of the lords, proclaimed certain liberties as law of the land. Prior, the king or sovereign lords appointed individual enfranchisement based on ones oath and demonstration of allegiance or lack thereof.
A newly entitled lord's allegiance was generally to protect a sovereign lord's assets and empire politically and physically. The entitled were representatives of the sovereign lord. Protecting the parish or place included land, labor, resources and capital ruled by the sovereign lord; which encompassed minerals, water, plants and animals. In exchange for entitlement over a designated place and its stabilized workforce, lords had military, administrative and developmental responsibilities including managing resources to collect food and armaments in support of the needs of the sovereign lord's dominion, which accrued a monetary value over time that became taxation. Successfully entitled lords build their own principalities which became mini-sovereignties ruled similarly.
Males provided the security of close and extended families from the beginning of humanity's evolution from bands of nomads. Thus the assets of a family were passed on to the first son from the time of the hunter and gatherer societies to ensure they had the resources, support, continuity and power they needed to protect and grow the family which continued through feudalism into today. Many issues today stem from the old methods of conquer or be conquered using weapons to destroy leaders of other tribes and cultures, their histories and their respective memory.
Today we have to ask ourselves, are we in fact using our intelligence to decide and define a holistic world value whether in conquest of new dominion or expansion of a province? As we look at the world we have to question the tools and methods of conquest, whether weapons of mass destruction, pollution or deforestation. Are they being used to eliminate mankind and the earth as a whole or preserve what we've learned by bringing sustainable community investment? Are the concepts of territorial imperialism, social Darwinism and imperial franchises really in the best interests of the preservation of the people and the planet? Or is there an exploitation of people and resources happening toward planetary disintegration?
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