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Their social structures and functions were expressed as a crude but pure and necessary
strategies and behaviors which self perpetuated by the fact that they either succeeded or
failed, and in doing so sustained or terminated those carrying out said actions or
accomplishing said tasks. In other words their view of themselves was in a way, futile, it
could serve no exigent part of daily life. The structure and function of their culture were
merged into a single purpose which in turn gave meaning to all subsequent behaviors and
activities; each group member thus being defined as much by their relation to and ability
to exploit the environment as to each other. The group and individual focus was on this
very high stakes game of survival; should one or two group members fail, all then might
be in jeopardy.
“forced perspective”; (a cognitive trick based on minor changes of width to height ratios
that result in structures appearing taller than they actually are however in the case of our
Hunter-Gather’s, nature and physical survival forced roles and determined manifest
functions by unspoken fiat. Their “perspective” of self and world was “forced”, as a
result of the needs of daily survival, no make up exams allowed) leaving little room for
behaviors and cultural norms, there was no oxygen for the development of any sub or
counter cultural traits; role strain and conflict were non existent by today’s standards, role
exit would be defined as death. In this stark milieu, gender was probably the penultimate
role determining factor, the primary being any and all activities that resulted in a net
surplus either physical or social to the group and its entropic effects on the phenotype of
elements of group structure and/or individual roles were left to the vicissitudes of life.
Yet over time more efficient utilization of resources and plain old good fortune reduced
the survival coefficient of energy output to sustenance from nearly 100% to something
less and that new proportionality is what began to allow individuals more physical,
psychological, and cultural room to influence, nuance and define social-structures, norms
and roles in ways that might have resonated naturally with human traits including gender.
Pity that no sooner had human kind acquired the ability, privilege, and
relationship to each other and the world we inhabit, than we abandoned such enlightened
folly opting instead for a much more practical expression of social-construction based in
the myopic, avaricious, and fallacious belief that might makes right. “Never was there a
man who made so little so little that another man with a club could not come and take it
Thus dawns the agricultural age and it’s resultant increase in food production
which leads to significant increases in population numbers and in turn the advent of
larger towns and cities, logarithmically increasing social interactions resulting in the need
for coherent systems or paradigms to make sense of them. This allowed for persons of
influence and power to at every social stratum to begin to define establish and enforce the
“rules”. Rules which derived their power from life and death consequences connected to
knowing and complying with them. Gender featured again as a prime, nearly axiomatic
factor in determining a person’s station, role, and caste in all but the rarest of exceptions.
The race to control the most resources and power was off and running and a
woman holding a child in each arm with another on the way was ill equipped to win it.
This status, (which is defined primarily by its characteristic of dependency for survival)
would predominately continue to define the “gender roles” waning only in very recent
times and only in the face of heroic efforts and the technological shattering of the chains
and shackles latent from the past. The perspective of a white male living in the dusk of
the industrial age, and the dawn of the post-industrial is not without its challenges.
Definitions that define the roles of women and men are in flux. The “should” factor is
greatly increased, along with the consequences attached to making a mistake. One might
fantasize about a simpler time when the rules were clear, a seeming time of no harm no
foul, where each person new, accepted, and played their part content in the doing, but no
more.
As more and more of each person’s identity stems from and takes on “real-ity”
from self-defined inter and intrapersonal processes and interactions, societal expectations,
definitions, and roles will lose focus, meaning and coherency. Subjectivity becomes
supreme, and each and every I-ME in the world becomes a deity.