I was enjoying discussing the matter in the " "Don't Tread On Me, but Imma Tread on Your Head" say Rand Paul Supporters" thread, and so here's a new thread so the discussion may continue, as that thread has been closed.
[In short, Traitorfish argues that chivalry has no more of a place in modern society than any other form of misogyny, whereas I argue that it is a necessary way to prevent people who would otherwise be misogynists from acting in a violent fashion on account of being misogynists at heart.]
Anyway, I think it's an interesting question: do notions of chivalry have any use whatsoever in the modern world? Is chivalry preferable to non-chivalric misogyny? If people weren't chivalric but were still misogynist, would the world be a worse place?
Spoiler the debate :
spryllino said:Better chivalry than open misogyny.
Karalysia said:They both rest on the same assumptions of female inferiority.
Traitorfish said:Chivalry can quite easily be a expression of misogyny, and, traditionally, is an expression of just that. "Misogyny" isn't limited to wife-beating.
Also! It sucks for men too, as does most of traditional sexism. It just gets us punched in the face.
spryllino said:Indeed chivalry is bad too, and it rests on the same foolish assumptions of female inferiority, and is an expression of misogyny.
However, I would rather be condescended to than beaten. Normally speaking, at least. Wouldn't you?
Karalysia said:False choice. Why accept either? It's not one or the other.
Traitorfish said:Of course, but I have no idea why such an arbitrary dichotomy should be presented.
spryllino said:Of course, but I have no idea why such an arbitrary dichotomy should be presented.
Traitorfish said:But we do not live in "more primitive societies", so it is not at all a pertinent dichotomy. It may be found in certain individual cases, I'll grant you, but that's not an argument for it's retention as a social institution.
Certainly, I'm not of the opinion that promoting female personhood in opposition to misogyny promotes a harsher misogyny. That sounds too much like the argument for "benevolent slavery" for me to treat it without at least some suspicion.
spryllino said:But some of us, Traitorfish, do live in more primitive societies. Some of us are not as educated as others; sometimes, in fact extremely frequently, this is systematic to a culture and not on an individual basis. Misogyny is culturally implanted in the minds of many people. In many parts of the world, it is too early, I think, to abandon chivalry without it simply being replaced by violence towards women.
There are a lot of these people, you know. They are endemic to society throughout the world, particularly in places like the less culturally advanced areas of the USA, and even more so in the Third World, but even in the UK. To convince them that chivalry is wrong without firmly securing in their mind that misogyny is wrong too would be dangerous and unprincipled, and you cannot firmly secure both those things in the perspective of a culture without allowing more than a generation for each fact to sink into that culture's psyche.
In fact, in all probability, there always will be a lot of misogynists. I cannot believe that it will ever be eradicated; it is too natural, natural in the wrong way. Chivalry, or some equally delusional substitute, must be shown as a social norm to these people to prevent them from being violent, and this will be the case now and until humans' brains are suddenly all enlightened simultaneously by some wierd supernatural force.
Traitorfish said:These things are true, yes. However! That does not mean that there is no value in education, especially for those who should know better, which is to say the vast majority of Westerners. "Don't hit anyone" certainly isn't a more regressive message to send than "Don't hit girls". Those to whom this is simply too difficult a concept to grasp are a particular collection of awful, awful people, and are their own special problem.
I mean, really, if "Don't hit anyone" becomes, in your head, "Hit everyone", then you have problems which extend rather further than internalised sexism.
spryllino said:Traitorfish, that's a very large and dominant collection of awful people who comprise a very large proportion of the world's population, and are sometimes very prevalent. Really, this person who kicked the woman in the head in the example could have done with a good grasp of chivalry. It would have done him and the woman both a lot of good in the circumstances. Would he or any like-minded people have taken, "Don't hit anyone," on board? I think not. People like him just aren't non-violent like that, by nature. Even if people can understand the statement, they don't necessarily agree with it, and there are perfectly good reasons to hit people. In some people's minds, "good reasons" might include "you got in my way." Such people need chivalry.
A more regressive message is sometimes necessary for more regressive people, and there are a lot of them.
Traitorfish said:Well, firstly, I would contest that the head-stomper was simply a sociopath. The fact that he was willing to engage in the public head-stomping of political opponents seems to prove that beyond all reasonable doubt.
Secondly, I'm honestly not sure at what point we disagree. Are you suggesting that we can only begin arguing against chivalry when the entire world has fully and entirely absorbed it? When will that be? As you yourself suggest, a performance of chivalry doesn't necessary suggest it's internalisation.
I, at least, feel capable of not hitting women without any code of honour dictating it, and I don't need to hold doors and pay for dinners to demonstrate that. Not true of everyone, but true of enough to be worth saying so, and I would give our fellow posters enough of the benefit of the doubt to include them in this category.
spryllino said:I'm not quite sure what we disagree about either. I suppose I recognise that chivalry has a place in modern society whereas you don't. Is that it?
At any rate, of course you can argue against chivalry, and I agree with you that it is fundamentally a bad attitude, but honestly not when you're talking about this sort of man who would happily attack a woman (or for that matter a man, but the woman is the point of our discussion). They need chivalry in order to restrain their barbarism. You don't; I don't; we both know that; sensible people don't need it in general; a lot of people, who admittedly probably aren't looking at this forum, do need it.
You're right to think that it's a thoroughly bigoted and utterly incorrect concept, but wrong to dismiss it totally without nodding to its social necessity.
Traitorfish said:I think that's about right; we both agree that chivalry was good for the past, and is bad for the future, but differ on the present.
spryllino said:At any rate, of course you can argue against chivalry, and I agree with you that it is fundamentally a bad attitude, but honestly not when you're talking about this sort of man who would happily attack a woman (or for that matter a man, but the woman is the point of our discussion). They need chivalry in order to restrain their barbarism. You don't; I don't; we both know that; sensible people don't need it in general; a lot of people, who admittedly probably aren't looking at this forum, do need it.
Again, this is where we differ. Those who are still willing to commit acts of violence against women are, I would argue, outliers, and not representative of a social norm. The resolution of the problems they present can't be solved simply by hoping that they catch up with the fourteenth century, nor is that worth all the damage done in waiting for this to happen.
Take this attack, for example- would it really be any worse if the victim was male? I think not. But would we be less shocked by his behaviour? Quite probably. Does this suggest that chivalry (or, at least, the view of gender which it reflects) means an increased concern for violence against women, or simply a lessened concern for violence committed against men? It's a double-edged sword if there ever was one.
After all, I'm not proposing the simple abandonment of chivalry, but a broader reform of our view of gender, of which this is a part. Certainly, its removal alone just allows the uglier parts of contemporary misogyny to flex their muscles more easily, which is really rather counter-productive. Perhaps, then, we don't differ as much as we think?
spryllino said:People who are willing to be violent towards women are outliers, certainly, especially in most of the developed world. However, there are plenty of people who I have very little confidence would maintain their non-violence to women were it not for their sense of chivalry.
Certainly, the fact that this woman was attacked is not really any more worthy of mention in itself than any man being attacked, but then again it is more unusual, and, as you said, it inflates men's egos. I don't really think chivalry suggests decreased concern for men at all; given that the whole concept of chivalry is a manifestation of misogyny - hatred for women in favour of men - in the first place, chivalric men ought to have more concern for other men too when compared against their concern for women, the difference being that their concern for men is authentic, whereas their concern for women is merely a manufactured result of their actual contempt for women.
The fact that this was reported at all demonstrates the intrinsic chivalry of culture to-day, as reflected in the media, and rather backs up my argument that chivalry is endemic to the world-view of a lot of people and that to remove it would be rather dangerous. I'm I can't quite see how that second paragraph of your answer really advances your argument, but that might be something to do with it being half past midnight.
I certainly agree that it shouldn't be considered in isolation, and that was partly what I was picking at when I started this debate.
Traitorfish said:spryllino said:People who are willing to be violent towards women are outliers, certainly, especially in most of the developed world. However, there are plenty of people who I have very little confidence would maintain their non-violence to women were it not for their sense of chivalry.
A fair point, although I would counter with the suggestion that such people are probably only held back from violence against men because of a sense of either a social obligation or fear of repercussion, and so represent an inherent risk to society at large regardless. These are people who cannot be satisfactorily dealt with simply by convincing that hitting women is un-manly.
Certainly, the fact that this woman was attacked is not really any more worthy of mention in itself than any man being attacked, but then again it is more unusual, and, as you said, it inflates men's egos. I don't really think chivalry suggests decreased concern for men at all; given that the whole concept of chivalry is a manifestation of misogyny - hatred for women in favour of men - in the first place, chivalric men ought to have more concern for other men too when compared against their concern for women, the difference being that their concern for men is authentic, whereas their concern for women is merely a manufactured result of their actual contempt for women.
I think that ignores the mutual hostility that sexist society breeds among men, and the constant demand for affirmations of masculinity, expressed through hostility towards both women and men. Any system which privileges one group over another encourages the emergence of privilege within any given group, which among men is often asserted by the inflicting of violence upon other men. Men are considerably more likely to commit violence against other men than they are women, and over more trivial causes, for the very reason that men are seen as capable of engaging in violence, a notion which chivalry passively endorses by marking off one particular segment of the population as off-limits.
Anyway, chivalry relies on pretty reactionary notions of gender, as demonstrated by the various comments found here about "women who act like men", and so isn't exactly fool-proof. Which isn't surprising, when you realise that "I don't hit girls" relies on an ultimately understanding of "girls" (perhaps not coincidental an explicitly infantilising term).
(Also, misogyny is better understood as contempt for women, rather than necessarily being actual hatred; the latter isn't quite as nuanced, and so presents an incomplete picture of the issue.)
The fact that this was reported at all demonstrates the intrinsic chivalry of culture to-day, as reflected in the media, and rather backs up my argument that chivalry is endemic to the world-view of a lot of people and that to remove it would be rather dangerous. I'm I can't quite see how that second paragraph of your answer really advances your argument, but that might be something to do with it being half past midnight.
Well, it was more a sort of pondering-out-loud than an actual argument, which is why I (apparently ninja-)edited it to something that sounded less like it was trying to reach a definite conclusion. The above is a bit closer to saying something halfway useful.
I certainly agree that it shouldn't be considered in isolation, and that was partly what I was picking at when I started this debate.
Well, if there's one thing that we have come to a conclusion on, it is that this a complex issue! No disagreements, there, I'm sure!
spryllino said:Traitorfish said:A fair point, although I would counter with the suggestion that such people are probably only held back from violence against men because of a sense of either a social obligation or fear of repercussion, and so represent an inherent risk to society at large regardless. These are people who cannot be satisfactorily dealt with simply by convincing that hitting women is un-manly.
No, they cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by any method, because sexism is implanted too deep into society for quick change; chivalry is not a satisfactory solution, but it is, for some, the best one. Again, this brings me back to the original choice I suggested: would you rather have someone who shows no-one any respect at all, or one that shows men real respect at the expense of women, and shows women pretend respect? The latter is clearly preferable, and when they hold such a stance, misogynists do not present as great a danger to society as they might otherwise.
I think that ignores the mutual hostility that sexist society breeds among men, and the constant demand for affirmations of masculinity, expressed through hostility towards both women and men. Any system which privileges one group over another encourages the emergence of privilege within any given group, which among men is often asserted by the inflicting of violence upon other men. Men are considerably more likely to commit violence against other men than they are women, and over more trivial causes, for the very reason that men are seen as capable of engaging in violence, a notion which chivalry passively endorses by marking off one particular segment of the population as off-limits.
Anyway, chivalry relies on pretty reactionary notions of gender, as demonstrated by the various comments found here about "women who act like men", and so isn't exactly fool-proof. Which isn't surprising, when you realise that "I don't hit girls" relies on an ultimately understanding of "girls" (perhaps not coincidental an explicitly infantilising term).
Well, yes, I agree; chivalry causes certain types of violence towards both sexes, but I judge that in most circumstances it prevents violence rather than encouraging it. Indeed it is complex, and indeed chivalry is not an appropriate alternative to behaving with appropriate and equivalent respect towards both sexes.
Perhaps men will behave towards each other with less respect on account of women being "off-limits", but I suspect that they would behave equally violently towards each other anyway, and that doubling the number of people who are socially able to engage in violence would merely double the amount of violence. We can't really know; it's difficult to imagine a world without sexism, least of all to imagine a world where sexism never existed.
(Also, misogyny is better understood as contempt for women, rather than necessarily being actual hatred; the latter isn't quite as nuanced, and so presents an incomplete picture of the issue.)
I agree. My point still works just as well, though, even when "hatred" is replaced by "contempt".
Well, if there's one thing that we have come to a conclusion on, it is that this a complex issue! No disagreements, there, I'm sure!
Certainly not!
[In short, Traitorfish argues that chivalry has no more of a place in modern society than any other form of misogyny, whereas I argue that it is a necessary way to prevent people who would otherwise be misogynists from acting in a violent fashion on account of being misogynists at heart.]
Anyway, I think it's an interesting question: do notions of chivalry have any use whatsoever in the modern world? Is chivalry preferable to non-chivalric misogyny? If people weren't chivalric but were still misogynist, would the world be a worse place?
