Sunday, 28 August 2011
-
Chivalry and Gender vs. Sex
The other day, a male friend and I were amicably bickering about the contradictions of chivalry. He tapped into a sentiment that I suspect is not uncommon among men today, and said, “Girls can’t expect to be treated as equals and expect me to be a gentleman. It’s one or the other.”One of the common misconceptions about egalitarian gender ideologies is that participating in traditional roles is an automatic rejection of all of the tenants of feminist thought. Or, in less gibberishy terms, people assume that being a feminist means that you pretend differences in being a man and being a woman don’t exist. Therefore, if you enjoy wearing make-up, take pleasure in cooking and being a stay-at-home mom, and if you enjoy when a man holds a door open for you, then you are automatically at odds with feminism.
To examine men and women, you have to consider the difference in the terms sex and gender. Sex is the biology of an individual, which is what you’re born with, and has to do with your chromosomal makeup. This would refer to the term “man” or “woman” (for the most part). It cannot be changed without a serious sex operation. Gender is the social construction of our sexes, or the terms “masculinity” and “femininity”. This is the performative element, which can be influenced by society, our surroundings, the media, etc. Gender is fluctuating, and unlike our sex, it changes over time (both historically, and in the personal life of an individual). We perform our genders on a daily basis, whether we are conscious of it or not.
Men and women are different, to be sure. And those differences should be appreciated and celebrated. The problem is when differences between the sexes are seen comparatively in terms of what is better and what is worse. Far too often throughout history, this has been the case. (10 points to whoever can guess which sex's qualities have been seen as inferior!)
Being a feminist does not mean you cannot enjoy performing traditional gender roles. In fact, part of the pleasure of being a man or a woman can be in that performance and the associations that come with it. But the performance of our genders should be for that reason, our pleasure, as opposed to an obligation. A good example of this is that a woman may enjoy wearing heels when she’s going out on a date with a super hot guy; but she may hate wearing heels when she feels obligated to do so for her job. Similarly, a man may enjoy playing that protective role, holding doors, and offering to pay for meals on dates; but he might hate to do so if he feels that he must do so, otherwise he is not a “real man.” (The heels example comes from this article, in which a man details why he enjoys the traditional chivalrous role of walking women to their car doors, but is also a feminist).
I don't think chivalry is mutually exclusive from liberal, progressive ideas of gender relations. But then again, I basically consider chivalry to be common courtesy. I don’t care if you’re a man or woman; if you’re ahead of me and exiting a building, I want you to hold the door for me instead of allowing it to slam in my face. If that’s such a chore, then regardless of male or female, you’re just a dick.
What do you enjoy about traditional gender roles? What do you feel obligated to do? What do you think of chivalry?
RecommendRelated Posts
Post a Comment
- Back to datingish's Datingish Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in datingish's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
About the Author
-
- From: RachelG
- Name: Rachel
- Location: New York City, New York, United States
- About Me: A recent 23 year old NYC transplant. In college I studied Creative Writing, Gender Studies, and Art History, which clearly translates into a trifecta of professional desirability. I can often be found reading, writing, playing very sloppy guitar, eating peanut butter, and swapping love life stories with my friends due to our plethora of failed relationships. I was voted Funniest Girl in high school, and am perpetually attempting to drop that in casual conversations without having it appear that I am still desperately clinging to it (which, let's face it, I am).
Stats: This Week All Time Posts: 0 27 Views: 0 100688 Comments: 0 1100 View all posts by RachelG
Comments (29)
i dont think about gender anymore i just meet people.
in general, i agree with you. but i think our roads diverge where you say that chivalry is synonymous with courtesy. i would adamantly claim that it is NOT, and i will always prefer gender-neutral courtesy.
but i winced when you said, "you're a dick..." to imply that someone is rude. the same way i wince when someone uses "pussy" to mean weak.
Some great stuff here, I do agree with the last commenter.
@MissPixieGlitter@xanga - I have to agree with this.
Common courtesy is common courtesy. Chivalry is a social hand-me-down from Middle Ages that's lost its actual meaning, but retains an inherent power paradigm that is at direct odds with feminism. (In part, that's in the definition of chivalry.) The party providing the protection does exactly that because they are in a position of power. This heralds back to the origins of chivalry (probably best defined by Raymond Lull), which was meant to mobilize the real constant force of instability in the feudal system (that is: the army) by giving them a special role in society as religious and social protectors. Chivalry is not only an anti-feminist idea, but it's also anti-democratic.
I know this is a rather strict definition of chivalry as it has evolved over the years, but the notion of chivalry is inherently flawed and should be replaced - in deed and name - by common courtesy. If all people are equal, courtesy should be common. Respect everyone regardless of their gender. (After all, how does chivalry deal with GLBT identities?)
I just tell people like your friend that if he's not going to be a gentleman, I'm not going to be a lady.
if the person is taking his/her merry time to walk towards the door that I'm holding open instead of seeming urgent to walk a little faster to the open door, then I won't hold it open for long and might let the door slam in their face. who do they think I am...the bell person at a hotel
show appreciation and I'll show mine.
Feminism and chivalry shouldn't even be considered together, especially in this day and age. It's not like back in the day where the girl could live off her daddy's money spending her time perfecting the skill of cooking and looking for a husband. NO ONE is paying our bills. So now women have to find a job to pay their own bills. They have to get educations not just to be able to hold conversations to attain a mans interests like half a century ago but to actually build a career for herself. Does this mean men have to stop being a gentleman/ chivalrous towards us JUST because we are trying to survive to?!?!? That's bullshit. We are still ladies.
We still want to be treated like a woman. Just because we HAVE TO work now, just because we wanted to be able to vote too, just because we wanted to be paid the same for the same job... doesn't mean we aren't ladies and like to be treated as such.
@ShirleyD@xanga - Yes! I agree! We CAN'T depend on men to take care of everything... Or maybe some women can, but I know most know that they need to make their own money too. Just because I have a career doesn't mean I don't want someone to treat me like a WOMAN (not a coworker) when we are romantic.
I know my current boyfriend likes that I'm independent and can take care of myself, but he will pay on most dates (though I will offer too), holds the door open for me, and sometimes opens the car door for me, though that's usually on special nights :) . Now, when we saw each other all the time, he didn't pay for everything because it would've cost him way too much money when we were together a lot, but with our few hours of distance, he likes to take care of me when I visit, and I appreciate it a lot!
chivalry and common courtesy are NOT the same thing. a real man holds doors open for everyone, not just people with vaginas. you do realize that chivalry as a concept is founded in the fundamental idea that women are lesser than men, right?
I love the point you made about enjoying our gender associations. They should be done for pleasure. If a certain gender attribution is something you don't like, then you have no obligation to follow through, we're in the 20th century. It's too often we're getting beat down for enjoying certain gender specific actions because they are so "gender specific" but why is that bad? A woman can be a feminine lady without having to demean her equality. I don't expect from a man other than the same I'm willing to offer him, and by the of course I mean including our gender differences.
Being a gentleman isn't about catering to women. It's about being respectful to all people, which all men should do regardless.
I'm not sure who it was that first threw chivalry under the bus in the guise of promoting gender equality, but I hope they had a crappy life (kidding, just kidding... sort of...). Being equal in the workplace, in public and in private has nothing to do with chivalry. Treating people equally as in pay and rights is more of a government construct than a romantic one.
Chivalry should still be alive because there is still the fact that men are stronger than women, men still have a greater amount of power (bullshit crybaby twenty year old guys aside, men still have the power) and certain sex roles remain.. you can't change that women are the only people who can birth babies and then feed them with their own bodies. Nothing wrong with revering women for a role men cannot do. So, physically women are the weaker sex and therein partly lies some measure of what chivalry is. Treating women with respect, not because we are fancier or better or whatever crybaby thing younger men want to say today, but because men still dominate over women and children. When men pop out babies, then I'll open the door for them. Until then I will be gracious towards anyone who opens the door for me. And politely hand the door to anyone going in after me (as is common courtesy). Besides some doors are heavy!
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - No, chivalry was constructed to remind knights that they had a knightly obligation to treat people better than others did. It was not just regulated to how they should treat women only. There was more to it. It also touched on the fact that they were trained to fight in combat, whereas others weren't... so they have to be respectful to all, not just women.
@TiredSoVeryTired@xanga - you are the first one to let such powerful sexist rhetoric enter the conversation, without any hint of intent at humor. Arguments like yours are the reason why millions of men feel pressured into lifelong acts of dispirited and restrained stoicism. Arguments like yours are the cause of a vicious cycle of endless cross-sex gender abuse from both women and men. And it is arguments like yours that show that men have at least just as much, but likely a far greater social obligation attached to their gender than women do. Gender equality NOW.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - That's why men died on the Titanic right? Cuz they were superior to women? Their lives weren't disposable as long as women were protected?
Seriously one of the most offensive things that feminists spout off. The gall it takes to bitch about being favored so heavily... So heavily that blood has been shed for their existence and they still view it as oppression. It's a slap in the face to every black american that endured slavery and Jim Crow laws. The people who were truly oppressed, beaten and maimed by society.
Drink some more feminist kool-aid ladies, and enjoy the deep-seated chivalry of society that does everything it can to pamper you and pad your falls. I think I'll settle with gender equality and call it a day.
@TiredSoVeryTired@xanga - i was speaking of chivalry as it relates to women. i understand that chivalry is not just about how women are treated. but the reality is that men are instructed to treat women differently simply because they ARE women. even if it's inequality in our favor, it's still inequality. and i don't think you can credibly argue for equal rights as a woman, while also advocating for men to give you special treatment.
@AmorVomnia7@xanga - newsflash: I DON'T WANT TO BE PAMPERED. i don't want to be treated special just because i have a vagina. i don't think the men were doing anything wonderful by espousing to "women and children first," and i would have happily been one of the few to tell my husband to shove it up his ass and get on the lifeboat. i don't believe men are disposable, and i don't believe women are superior.
and how much of a gentleman are you if the only reason you'll do something nice for a woman is because she IS a woman? what's wrong with fighting for for everyone, regardless of gender, simply because we're all human beings and in this together? why should i be thankful for someone who was willing to "shed blood for my existence" when i know they wouldn't have done so for other minorities? and at what social, political, and economical costs to us was that blood shed? the men who'd die for me simply because i'm a woman are the same men who, a few hundred years ago, would have burnt me at the stake because i'm an outspoken woman. they, like you apparently, figured we should just shut up and take the discrimination in some areas because of the perks we get in others.
i want to be treated like a human being. i want to be respected and loved for no other reason than that i'm human. fighting for equal rights means true equality... in the good as well as the bad. it means seeing women as just as valuable as men. no more, no less.
@guest - Both genders have social obligations, only women have physical obligations to their gender. Unless you want to compare hiding public boners to childbirth or something, I don't know?
Every gender should treat the other gender kindly and properly. Throughout history women aren't the gender that fail at this. The leading cause of death among pregnant women still is murder by the father of their baby. And when you look at stats of cause of death for women... murder by a man is still a leading cause. The reverse is not the case for men... women aren't a leading cause of death for men.
True gender equality would even that out.
@AmorVomnia7@xanga - Men died on the Titanic because men thought it was unsinkable and they didn't put enough lifeboats on the thing. Bottom line... in a disaster like the Titanic the stronger should help the weaker first... whether man or woman, but at the end of the day the strongest group will still be more male than female. None of that means any gender is better than another or more worthy of life. And that was 1912, I think women were taught to be more weak back then. I don't think it'd be the exact same thing to happen now.
Women have through out history been beaten, killed, and maimed by society... witchcraft trials, as one example. I don't know why you'd bring up slavery here. What does that really have to do with chivalry today?
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - What does the government giving equal rights to women (same pay, same opportunities, voting, etc.) have anything to do with the way a man should treat a woman? I don't think they are related at all. Equal rights and feminism have more to do with rights... not the way a woman is treated by a man when they both enter a building.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - I think you've mistaken me as a chivalrist. I am most definitely NOT a chivalrist, as I see the harm that it does to men.
Now with that out of the way...
"i don't want to be treated special just because i have a vagina."
I don't want you to either. My contention however, is that you wouldn't like having to experience the same amount of acountability and issues as men. It seems wonderful when you look at the alphas... But I don't think you've seen the dark underside of male disposability. I don't think you've experienced the life of a beta and/or omega male. I don't think you understand how deep-seated chivalry effects those men who aren't at the top of the social hiearchy. Men dying 7 years earlier than women. Men not getting the same funding for prostate cancer as breast cancer, despite similar incidence. Men going to prison in droves. Men being raped and people not actually believing that men CAN be raped because of the tremendous stigma attached to it (and it IS tremendous). Men not having any shelters or funding to help save them from an abusive spouse. The invisibility of male pain and male victimhood when they are abused by women. Men being assaulted and physically harmed way more than any female is accustomed to. This is something that I contend women of today would not be able to handle, yet it is precisely what would show true gender equality.
The rest of your reply doesn't particularly apply to me, as I don't condone chivalry.
Everything I want to say has been said already.
@TiredSoVeryTired@xanga - women have been pretty unfair to men. namely, a gross amount of "modern" women still expect special treatment and exorbitant favors from men simply because they are women. why is that their due because they were born female? the world doesn't owe me any favors because i can give birth. if kindness towards women is predicated women's ability to bear children, what does this mean for women who cannot?
aside from the average man being stronger than the average woman, what is this inherent male "power" of which you speak? let's go with the men-are-physically-stronger argument. if it were a matter of the strong "protecting" the weak, do men open doors for physically weaker men? do women open doors for men for are physically weaker? also, if you are a fully functional, able human being, you can open your own damn doors. any person carrying heavy objects or otherwise handicapped in the door-opening department should be helped, but am i handicapped because i am a woman? i should hope not. i hold the door for everyone because it is courteous to do so. i hope others hold doors for the same reason.
regarding murder, the leading cause of death for pregnant women is medical complications of pregnancy, followed by accidental death, and then followed by murder. the reason murder is up there is because women of childbearing age are really too young to die of many other causes. the same applies to younger men. women are not the leading cause of death for men because men commit murder more often than women, and the majority of murder victims are male. what does this have to do with unfairness against women? male violence against women is given tantamount attention, but female violence against men is disgustingly downplayed. just look at the comments on this datingish post. would people be laughing if a man comparably mutilated his wife?
@MissPixieGlitter@xanga - Just because some women have and still treat men like crap doesn't mean chivalry should die. Yes, some women expect to be treated like a princess but that is not what chivalry is about. There's nothing saying that men must go overboard for every woman they meet. It doesn't mean they allow someone to treat them crappy. It doesn't mean that some women should treat men like they are simply money bags. That's something also lost in the lack of chivalry. This part of chivalry is that men treat women like they are ladies, not slaves, not prostitutes, not as objects.
"Male" power has everything to do with the system in America. It goes very deep in our heritage. My grandmother divorced an abusive husband who threw her down the stairs when she was 8 months pregnant with their 4th child. When she went job hunting (back in the 1950s) she was patted on the head and told to find a husband, not a job. This is not as prevalent today (thankfully) but this is the kind of stuff that feminism fought against. When she did get some jobs, sometimes she was paid less because men needed more money for their families. Women still make less money today than men do.
Men and women each have their own strengths and weaknesses... and I'm speaking generally not specifically. Do you think there are men out there that want other men to determine that they are "weaker" so "stronger" men should open the door? That's not a real issue here unless weak men would like to make it an issue. What I mean by weak and strong is simply physical and especially physical force... yes, we know some women abuse men and they shouldn't! That has no bearing on the fact that overwhelming when domestic abuse happens it is a man abusing a woman. That has a lot to do with a general lack of respect for women. It's not a historical truth that droves of women abuse their husband. If it became that way, perhaps there needs to be a code of chivalry that women will need to follow too.
There used to be a respect for woman because they were wives and mothers. It's sad that has been lost along the way. I'm sure there is a similar loss of respect for men. Somewhere along the line some girls started thinking men owed them presents... That's no better (IMO) than chivalry dying. Chivalry wasn't something men took it upon themselves to act, not something women demanded.
Just because I think chivalry shouldn't die doesn't mean it is okay for women to abuse men. They aren't linked. Obviously, nobody should be killing anybody.
"That has no bearing on the fact that overwhelming when domestic abuse happens it is a man abusing a woman."
False.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOu_BszChIE
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/97/5/941
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
http://www.menweb.org/battered/nvawsurv.pdf
"'Male' power has everything to do with the system in America."
About that 'male power', I'd suggest this book. The outline enough shows some interesting concepts:
http://www.warrenfarrell.org/TheBook/index.html