Chivalry

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.

Spoiler the debate :

[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?

 

Misogyny is the hatred of women, right? How could it EVER be preferable to chivalry?

 

Misogyny is better defined as contempt for women, and Traitorfish was arguing that chivalry was a form of misogyny anyway.

 

Women deserve to be treated better and with respect simply because of the fact that they are women. They are the fairer sex, after all, and warrant such honor.

 

Unless they are es and deserve to be slapped down.

 

Chivalry increases the chance to get in their pants, so that's way better than misogyny.

Spoiler :

 

As a general rule, I concur.

But I also recognize there are exceptions to this rule.



Chivalry isnt dead, but its not what it used to be either.

 

Then why did Eve take a bite out of the apple?

Women should treat men better since they got us kicked out of Paradise.

 

Oh. I agree. I'm not opening a door for Amy Fisher or Tonya Harding, after all.

 

However some of those assumptions are true most of the time. The generalisation (-> "all") is still bad, don't get me wrong on that. But claiming that most men have more physical strength (in the sense of pushing or lifting stuff) than most women is not sexist. It's a fact.
As bad as complete genralisation of that statistical fact is, is keeping assumtions about what that does entail. Physical strength being on average higher in men doesn't determine men to be the natural winners in fights (like in the posts where all of this came up (i.e. could Rand Paul fight a women?)). Success in fights is determined by skills who are probably not the least bit more present in men than in women. So succeeding in a fight is not "manly" at all. We are biased to believe that because men tend to be, on average, more aggressive and more likely to start, participate in, continue and escalate physical fights. And you obviously have to do some of those things to succeed in a fight. We ignore that the overwhelming majority of people who get their teeth handed to them in a fight are men too. Well Traitorfish hinted at that to some extend.
So to put it bluntly: Men are on average taller and physically stronger than women. There is no use denying that. That does make them dispositioned to open pickle jars or reach for stuff on the top shelf but not dispositioned to dominate women and rule the world.
We have to keep that distinction in mind.

Iirc you haven't given a definition of chivalry in the original thread. You probably should do so. Until you do i would claim that chivalry is common courtesy, solidarity with another human being, compassion.
As i said in the other thread: Compassion itself is almost by definition presumptive. That doesn't make it a bad thing.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. If it is that those three things are entirely different from one another and have little to nothing to do with each other, i would agree. However i have a feeling that you were trying to say exactly the opposite.
So let's see what those are, shall we: Hitting someone (no matter what gender) is assault, a crime. One should not do that. It's in the law and it's a violation of a fundamental human right. Holding a door is common courtesy (to me at least). One can do that without gender being a factor at all, as we have agreed (one could hold the door for someone who is impaired or to someone who is as physically potent as oneself but happens to be carrying a huge stack of files).
Paying for dinner on a date is entirely different form that. That's not common courtesy. It's part of mating. It's the beginning of foreplay.
One can try to make holding a door the same thing - you'd just have to put on a very cheesy smile to do so - but let's assume that isn't the norm for people holding doors (although it maybe once was).

I do to some extend agree with the last sentence, but in general this paragraph is a very good depiction of the difference of our assertions:
Men are not made more aggressive and striving for competition and dominance by "society" (which should be read as "patriarchy", i guess) but simply put for two reason: a) the mate selection criteria of women b) the imbred predispostion to meet those criteria.
So i am going ahead to say a very unpopular thing (feel free to call it mysoginistic):
(In the western world) the failure of feminism to further advance for most of the last 30 years is almost entirely the womens fault and the feminists fault in particular as most of them are refusing to revise archaic criteria for mate selection, refusing to live up to their professed set of values and principles. And worst of all: Most of them don't even do so in practice despite of better judgement in theory but just outright refuse to acknowledge the necessity.

Anyway - back to the holding the door thingy: To me holding a door is something i do out of coutesy and compassion. I do it mostly for women cause they are more frequently appearing weak enough in comparison to myself to deserve help with doors. I guess the unfair presumptive criterium i use is simply hight: I remember to have been holding doors for men who are a whole foot smaller than me but letting the door fall into the face of 6 foot tall attractive blondes, for they can help themselves and holding doors isn't supposed to be an initiation of some mating ritual, as i pointed out above. At least not in my book.

I emphasized the "on a date" above. This is a bit tricky as it is totally subjective what qualifies as a date and what doesn't and what a "date" is anyways.
At an undaty get together where the other person happens to be female i would once again go with the courtesy of the strong helping the weak. So i'd pay when i have significantly more money than she has and expect her to pay the whole bill if the opposite is true. On a date on the other hand people can do all the idiosyncratic things that strike their fancy.
To me a date would have to be as spontaneous, informal and cheap as possible in the first place. A dinner in a posh restaurant is about pretense and vanity not about understanding or commitment. So my last full fledged date had a meal phase consisting of us sitting in the city park between a bunch of peacocks sharing a subway sandwich and laughing at the birds greedily swallowing crums that almost choke them. Come to think of it: That included the use of a coupon.
I paid. Not out of condescense but because i could pay and she was completely broke to a point that she literally coundn't pay a sandwich until the end of the month.
Call that chivalry if you want to. As i said you'd have to give a definition anyway.

Well, it's honest or straightforward at least. So it can be fought and reformed way more easily than a backhanded condescendence, that - according to Traitorfishs claim - chivalry is.

I wouldn't make an assessment of the persons character the basis of my decision to hold a door or not. I wouldn't hold the door for a 6 foot tall woman if she won the Nobel Peace Price. That would be reverence not courtesy. On the same page i would hold the door for a five foot man in some propaganda shirt of a far right cause. I'd actually make a point of doing so to demonstrate to him that slackers in tight shocking pink korean suede jackets with stains of motor oil on them are as much a part of society as he is.

 

Holding a door open to someone is commonly seen as a sign of courtesy and respect, not contempt. At least in these parts...

 

Well, there was this one lady I dated that viewed it as me thinking she was incapable of opening it herself. She was an odd one...

 

Its a pretty simple social convention. I actually hold the door for men as well. Overall, I see nothing wrong w/ a reasonable amount of it.

 

It isn't fully dead, but women have almost managed to kill it.

 

Well if I had a choice between chivalry and brutal misgony (I cant spell that) Id rather take the chival. But neither of them is the best choice really. Its like choosing between something thats bitter and something thats very bitter.

 

I don't see the problem with it but then, i'm not a woman.

 

Chivalry was always BS anyways.

 

Well its sort of "The woman is weeker and needs to be protected" sort of stuff. I dont need a big strong man thank you very much.

 

You don't need one, but they certainly make your life easier.

Just as having a small weak woman around makes my life easier

 

NO, it's more like "I honor you, woman, because you are a woman." Like how kings and queens got toted around in ancient days by four or eight dudes carrying their ...crap, what are those called... luxury move-about boxes