If modern western social awareness and attitudes were present in all humans from the beginning of our history, what things would be different and how?
We are more enlightened toward a great many things today than we were in the past, including sexual and racial equality, gay and religious tolerance, animal rights, etc. We’ve certainly got a ways to go, but things will hopefully continue on the same slope going forward.
But what if these current attitudes were always present in our collective consciousness? Pick one or more modern enlightened attitudes, run it backward in history and discuss how you believe society would have evolved differently than it did with that attitude always present.
I’ll start with perhaps one of the more minor changes: fashion. How would fashion have evolved and currently stand, if the concept of sexual equality was always present? Would there be as extreme differences between men’s and women’s fashion (still present, though subdued today)?
I don’t believe so. If we assume women were objectified to start, and one of their main roles throughout history was to be “pretty” and attractive for men, then it makes sense that women’s fashion (including clothes, makeup, hairstyle, etc.) would evolve more extremely than men’s fashion. At various times and places in history, men certainly wished to be visually appealing to women, or other men, but with not nearly the same degree of compulsion than that thrust upon women. So, I think it’s safe to assume women’s fashion would have developed much more subdued (no foot binding, corsets, beehive doos, etc.).
What about men’s fashion? If women weren’t the objectified sex from the beginning, would men have been compelled to take a greater role in visually attracting women and would their fashion evolution follow suit? I believe men’s fashion would have evolved more extremely than it did in this case (e.g. more makeup, cod pieces, pantaloons, bottomless chaps 
etc.).
I believe men and women’s fashion today would be more or less equal in scope and diversity with a history of sexual equality and they would be somewhere in between the scope and diversity of current men’s and women’s fashion. There would be more of an androgynous look, but not entirely so—men and women would still have physical differences that they would want to accentuate, after all. Things like eyeliner and lipstick would be sex non-specific, because both sexes have eyes and lips that can use accentuating. But, men would want more to accentuate height and musculature; women would want more to accentuate curvature and softness.
Alright, does anyone disagree with my assessment of fashion development, or wish to expand or add?
Who wants to tackle “slavery” with a history of racial equality? Would slavery have evolved at all? Who would have become slaves, just the bottom of the socioeconomic pool, regardless of race? Would things built from slavery not have been built (e.g. cotton industry/ large plantations)?
How about “humanity toward animals”? Would there be no meat in the grocery stores today, or would slaughterhouses just have evolved a little less barbarically? Would we have ever domesticated animals for burden or pets?