Wait a second; isn’t it supposed to be the other way? Well that was what we were taught in school, but until recently I begin to have my own doubts on the subject of unity. We are not talking about 1 Malaysia, but about the evolution of mankind since the stone age and how did we bring this division upon us. So now let’s wind the clock back to 40 000 years ago and take a look at life before civilization (a time when even clothing was not designed yet :P), probably men and women begin life on earth with equality in everything. Men and women took turns to do their daily chores (hunting, cooking, and etc.).
When food became scarce, life became tough. Hunting became ever more challenging as people had to leave their home for several days just to find for food, and probably women seem not to cope with the rough conditions, while men had always enjoyed the adrenaline rush in them whenever they see their prey. Obviously, as time goes on, men took over the rougher and tougher chores while women affiliate themselves with much tender, artistic, and tasks that require lots of patience. Women also had to carry more responsibility in nurturing the newborns. Soon, men began to compete with each other to see who the best in hunting and fighting is. The best of the best then becomes the group leader and it is his responsibility to protect the others in the group. Women then go to the strong men to seek protection from other men, and logically the toughest guy “owns” the most women. This is when men became superior and women became inferior 40 000 years ago.
As these groups started claiming their own place, territorial dispute occurs and eventually it leads to war. Who goes to war? Yes, it was men. The inferiority of women kept growing at this period of time. War demanded a more organized social structure within these groups. So then we have a King, his General, the army, and finally civilians. This is how status of a man is measured, while women’s status more than often depended on their spouse’s rank in the social hierarchy. For instance, the wife of the General has higher status than the wife of a soldier.
Things became more complicated when men tried to understand God. The attempt to explain the unexplainable soon evolved into religion. Religion doesn’t exist without holy book/scriptures, and you know what…all these scriptures were written by men, and not women. So priests/holy men/messenger (men of course) sealed their place at the top of the social structure and keep the society divided to maintain harmony. Then what about women? Their status still depended on their husband’s rank.
Probably you know what happened after that. Yes, holy war took place. People started defending their respective religion as the true faith and look at what they had brought upon themselves. Firstly, humans were divided into male and female, then according to hierarchy, and now religion. But wait, there is 1 more. Humans are also divided by RACE!! Now how did that happen?
As religion spread across the continents, it does no longer consist of people from the same skin colour, same culture and speak the same language. But you know, skin colour is what made this huge difference among the other two because it is just too obvious and you can’t hide it, right? Human division should have stopped now. Or does it? Within a certain religion, people were further divided into smaller group based on skin colour, race, caste, and so on. Then came revolution, new ideologies and you name it. Humans were further divided into smaller groups to the extent that unity seems to be impossible.
Now, there may be certain differences among people that come by nature and not by choice. These differences should lead to the discovery of one’s true self and if it brings you towards further division among humans, well then something is wrong somewhere. Probably, after reading this, you would have realized that God only divided us into male and female. The rest, we brought onto ourselves. So the next time you see someone different from you, wind the clock back 40 000 years and you’ll probably won’t notice any difference.
~Be the change you want to see in others~
