From Lucy to Leadership Part 2: Our Origins’ Central Question

Issue 252 — February 11, 2024

Last weekend, I went to see the movie I think should win Academy Awards in every category: Ava DuVernay’s rendition of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

After writing last week about the discovery of the 3.2 million year old hominid fossil Lucy in Hadar, Ethiopia 50 years ago by paleoanthropologist and founder of the Institute of Human Origins Donald Johanson, I wanted to explore further the question of why we humans are the way we are.

In teaching women how to redefine power via the 9 Leadership Power Tools curriculum, I have realized how deep seated some of our fears and gender-based behaviors around power and intentionality for our lives are. And our diversity, equity, and inclusion programs also start with a deep exploration of the power dynamics underlying implicit and explicit bias and address how to transform those characteristics into our superpowers.

The unspoken system that has shaped America and chronicles how lives today are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

In Caste, Wilkerson creates a framework for understanding the human origins of the divisions we create to make pecking orders of power that lead to discrimination, and in its more extreme manifestations, to enslavement, brutalization, or war.

These are human-created divisions. Wilkerson’s analysis that they are rooted in hierarchies of caste rather than racism per se is compellingly illustrated by comparing racism in America, antisemitism in Nazi Germany, and the caste system in India.

I wish she had added sexism in almost every society, because that seems to be a through line that manifests in different ways, but the result is that lesser status and the low rung on that pecking order are typically allotted to women. You could argue that since men are challenged to do feats of courage and physical prowess, they have it just as bad. For example, bull jumping is a rite of passage for boys in the Kara tribe, where our travel group had camped for two days in the Omo region of Ethiopia. The young men must succeed at this dangerous activity before they can get married and those who cannot risk being ostracized.

Somehow men showing strength and physical power doesn’t seem like a symmetrical comparison when placed against lifelong restrictions on women’s autonomy and social power.

What would Lucy think if she could come back today?

Lucy, as I noted previously, is everywhere here in Ethiopia. In a jazz bar and cultural center called Fendika, this stunning painting graced the stage.

It seemed to be saying, “What an evolutionary journey we have made in these 3.2 million years. Or have we?”

The owner of Fendika is a dancer and choreographer named Melaku Belay. He welcomed the audience and introduced the band, likening Fendika to a hospital, a place where the world can heal through the medicine of music.

I was taken by that metaphor. In a world that seems ready to explode with wars and the use of oppressive power OVER all around, music is indeed a universally understood language that touches minds and hearts as it feeds the power TO bring a healthier, less violent, more empathetic world.

The hardy partiers with Melaku Belay at Fendika.

The four of us who had gone to Fendika were jet lagged so we got up to leave after the first set. I saw Melaku standing nearby. I went up to him and said how much I appreciated his remarks. He invited us to come see the rest of the building.

Behind the music room was a bar from which people could see the music and drink at tables, or order from a fairly extensive food menu. Behind that was a gallery with colorful works of local artists. Melaku said he let the artists show their paintings free of charge to help them out. Why?

Melaku told us that he was living on the streets as a teen. The then-owner of Fendika let him sleep there under the bar. He danced every night for 12 years earning only tips. But he learned how to run the business and now owns it, with a fierce determination to preserve it and its rich history of indigenous Ethiopian music and dance.

He showed us what he called his “ego wall” covered with awards and recognitions behind his large, dark wooden desk. From an armoire, he pulled out a large shiny book with his photo and his TEDX talk on the cover.

While small buildings are being torn down and rebuilt as modern skyscrapers, he said he had twice saved Fendika’s building. Obviously a good businessman, he was equally proud of his philanthropic intent to help others in the artistic world.

We all bought some jewelry from the small shop. Melaku took us to the bar and poured shots of a Grappa-like liquor that went down like fire as we toasted the evening.

Whether Melaku can keep Fendika in its original state while buildings on either side are being torn down and rebuilt remains to be seen. Everywhere, even in the most remote places, old and modern ways are juxtaposed. An aluminum coffee grinder along with a mortar and pestle at the coffee ceremony. A thatched hut without plumbing or electricity yet with a motorcycle in the yard and a small cell phone in everyone’s hand.

Technology is changing to a greater or lesser degree globally. Will that democratize or separate groups further? Some things are harder than others to change.

Wilkerson says the caste system in America is 400 years old and it will not be changed overnight. The bottom caste can’t fix it alone. Those at the top who are most able to change it are least likely to want to change it. “Caste is a disease and none of us is immune… It is a danger to the species and to the planet to have this unexamined depth of grievance and discontent.”

Human beings everywhere, she observes, are more alike than we are different. The central question about human behavior from Lucy to today is how we treat others in our species from this day forward.

For a discussion related to this topic, focusing on “Women, Power, and Leadership” today and in the future, join me along with Gloria Steinem and Jamia Wilson for a free live virtual conversation on Monday, February 19 at 2 p.m. Eastern. Register here. Sponsorship opportunities are available too.

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.