That Fine Line Between Chivalry and Disrespect

[Andara Bledin]

Is it really too much to ask that people just be decent to others just because?

Just because I happen to be on the better end of the stick for most of this doesn't make it right or proper.

I am not going to settle for pedestal treatment just because there is a worse alternative. There's also a better alternative, and I'll be damned if I won't try to get people to recognize that fact.

^-.-^

[anakhouri]

Ah, see. If someone says, "I'll carry this box for you because you're a wee little woman and not very strong." then yes, that would infuriate me. But I don't think your original post was entirely clear that the person(s) involved stated their motives this way.

I'm sorry you know people like this; like I said, I have never seen a man who wouldn't go through a door because a woman was holding it. I have had men come to take heavy items off my hands, but if I had protested (usually it was a relief) they would have let me alone. I live in a blissfully progessive place, I suppose.

I have had elderly men express surprise that I would carry things for them at work, but they grew up in a different time and none of them were ever really put out about it. Perhaps a little ashamed they had grown infirm enough that they had to let a woman help them, since it wasn't what they were used to.

Now, I have known women who played helpless to try to attract some Disney prince who would solve all their problems but never have I met a man who wanted to play Disney prince and do everything for me just because I have a vagina. Or maybe I did and just didn't give him the time of day because he seemed like a douche.

[guywithashovel]

I hold the door open for everybody behind me, regardless of gender. I have been berated by angry third-wave feminists before for doing this, and no amount of telling them that I don't care if they have tits or not when I hold the door open will placate them, but I still do it anyways.

Those people aren't really mad at you for holding the door for them. They resent you because of the penis you have between your legs. If it wasn't the door, it would have been something else.

[the_std]

Andara, I know what you mean.

My ex was like this - he thought he was a modern version of a knight in a help-the-weak-women kind of way. He'd run ahead to open a door for a woman, but wouldn't blink at letting the door shut in a man's face. He'd spend time and money making the women in his life extra-comfortable, neglecting duties and responsibilities along the way for minor improvements to a woman's life. One time, he drove from midwestern Canada to North Carolina and back in three days to help his friend move a couch from one end of her house to the other, blowing off his brother's birthday and graduation in one fell swoop.

While I did benefit from it in that he did all these things for me since I was a woman, it was immensely infuriating. When a guy accidentally spilled his beer on me at the bar, my ex punched the guy out despite my insistance that I was fine. When I was moving, he showed up and got in the way all day because told me I needed his help doing the heavy lifting, when I'd been the one to move all that shit in in the first place and it was a TINY apartment - he made the whole thing take twice as long as it needed to.

The worst thing is he wasn't demeaning or condescending on purpose. He truly and deeply believed that women needed his "help", and he thought he was doing good. He was misogynistic in a way that was hard to stop, since all of his intentions were well-meaning. And yet that still makes it incredibly infuriating when you're on the receiving end of it.

[Andara Bledin]

The worst thing is he wasn't demeaning or condescending on purpose. He truly and deeply believed that women needed his "help", and he thought he was doing good. He was misogynistic in a way that was hard to stop, since all of his intentions were well-meaning. And yet that still makes it incredibly infuriating when you're on the receiving end of it.

This! This is what bothers me.

It's that insidious form of misogyny where everybody else looks the other way (I count a dozen in this thread alone >_> ) because it's not obvious or immediately obviously negative.

It's this attitude that keeps the glass ceiling firmly in place. It's this sort of attitude that has women fired from job so they can stay home with their kids. It's this sort of attitude that keeps girls from being encouraged to go into the hard sciences with the same level as boys. This is what keeps women from being allowed to "be all they can be" in today's military.

It's the dark, sneaking, quiet type of misogyny that wears the cloak of chivalry and puts women on pedestals to ensure they don't forget their places and think that they can be a man's equal.

^-.-^

[siead_lietrathua]

if you belive that it puts women on a pedestal, that's your opinion. i don't think a man opening a door for a woman is any more sexist than a woman (for example) offering to make a sandwich for a man. it doesnt have to ccome from a place of power dynamics.
unless a man is opening a door for you while saying "here, let me get that for you because you'r a woman and i'm objectifying you in order to keep you from being equal", don't assume that's what he means.
you can be equals and still have the small rituals of curdosy. i'm concerned about equality when it comes to voting rights, legal rights, and worker rights. not for trivial shit like this.
and really, it is. things like whether or not chivalry is equal to dehumanization of women, are trivial. in my mind it falls under the "if that's the biggest concern in your life, i'm happy for you" catagory of thought. focusing on crap like that distracts people from the truly lacking in equality issues going on, like lower wages for women, or unequal treatment of men in divorce cases (in north america), or women that still get stoned for kissing a man before marrige.

[Andara Bledin]

it doesnt have to ccome from a place of power dynamics.

If it doesn't then I don't give a rat's ass and it has nothing to do with this thread. >_<

That said, there's an awful lot of people who don't think there is a power dynamic involved who don't realize that there is because that was how they were brought up to be.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

My problem here is your "fine line" is so fine that it has taken you several posts to define it and in real life would take much observation of a person to even pin it down. Unless they blatantly stated their intentions to you in the process. Thus rendering it rather difficult to even deduce from a stranger's actions.

[Andara Bledin]

This thread isn't about judging strangers.

I'm trying to get people to judge themselves and question their own motivations.

If you see no problem with treating a person differently based solely upon their lack of a penis, absent any other criteria, that's the problem.

^-.-^

[siead_lietrathua]

This thread isn't about judging strangers.

it kinda is though. unless someone expresses they are holding a door from a sexist modivation, any assumption that they are is judging them.
even guy's that open doors with a dramatic flourish can be doing it because they thought it would be funny. (hubby's been known to do it with a bow at times. he is also the kind to slam a door in a woman's face if she's a bitch about it)

isn't thinking a man would only open a door for a woman also treating someone diffrently because they own a penis? women hold doors for women to, is that the same thing? what if the woman holding a door for another woman is doing it because the girl being held-for looks more delicate. is it mysogenistic of the holder then? get how silly trying to guess other people's modivations is yet?

i still think complaining about people treating someone in a positive nature just because of the genetalia they carry, because of the genitals they carry, is definatly a "first-world-problem".

[Andara Bledin]

I swear, it's like some people can't see the forest for the trees, sometimes.

And the whole "it's not as big a problem as that problem over there so it's not a real problem" thing is nearly as maddening. >_<

^-.-^

[LadyBarbossa]

I've never had anyone do it to me condescendingly, but I'll hold the door for anyone, just because that's how I am. Sometimes guys doing it for me makes me feel weird though. I have one friend who won't dash ahead of me, per se, but he will walk a little quicker so he can beat me to doors, goes to the counter and gets my food when we're out to eat, refills my drinks, etc. And most of the time refuses to let me pay.

Last week he got the door for me at work yet again and I kind of just stood there and gave him the chance to go through first.

H: "What?"

Me: "Nothing."

H: "Something the matter?"

Me: "... no."

H: "What, you got a problem, you afraid I'm gonna do something? Afraid I might stare at your ass if you go out first? 'Fraid I might point out that booger on the back of your shirt or put one there myself?"

Conversations like these are a nice counter-balance for his generous chivalry

[Rapscallion]

This thread isn't about judging strangers.

I'm trying to get people to judge themselves and question their own motivations.

If you see no problem with treating a person differently based solely upon their lack of a penis, absent any other criteria, that's the problem.

^-.-^

So, what you're saying is that you regard how someone goes through a door as a test and a learning experience for them?

What do you do with the knowledge of how people react to an unannounced test if they pass or fail? Do you even tell them they're in a test? That they've passed or failed? That one was imminent?

I can't help but think that if this is a serious issue for you then there are other things in the world that need dealing with first.

I don't have a horse in this race, so to speak. I'll hold doors open for people I like and won't for people I don't. Gender is irrelevant to me for this. If I really like someone, I'll salute in a manner that amuses me.

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Is it really so difficult for people I've witnessed make intelligent and enlightened posts at other times to grasp the idea that I'm specifically trying to get people who are in the habit of posting how they automatically treat women differently than men to realize just how sexist that is?

It's like half the forum has decided to stumble around this thread like halfwits and fools rather than engage in intelligent discourse, and that's not even counting the people who have made posts that show that they quite notably didn't read a damn thing I've posted and are just going off what they think the title is supposed to refer to. >_<

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

I'm trying to work out what you expected. I hold a door open for someone, I don't expect anything in return - I'm doing it because it's what I do for people.

I don't really see someone holding a door open for someone as a reason to attack. I don't blame people for taking it that way.

From what I can tell, you're against those who do it on grounds of gender. Until you can find a foolproof way of proving that at the instant of occurence, all you're railing against is something for the most part unprovable.

Rapscallion