Should men be chivalrous?

[frekk]

I hold doors open for whoever is behind me. I go out of my way for old people, anyone carrying something heavy, and sometimes kids (if it's a heavy door).

I never really thought of holding a door as "chivalrous" just seems like common courtesy to me, and never give a thought to the sex of the individual, I hold doors open for other men without really thinking about it until people mention this chivalry business. Other people hold doors open for me sometimes, and I've never really noticed that either sex is more or less likely to do so (though I have noticed that teens and young people are much less likely to do so).

To me, chivalry would be something more like defending a woman's honour, "Is this guy bothering you?" kind of thing, or disallowing women to be insulted or degraded in your presence. While I've indulged in this in some way from time to time, I've never really taken it too far. I think in subtle moderation it is fine, but some people get a little out of hand with it.

 

[MCincy]

Pardon the lateness of my reply:

Wait - I need to get this straight...

You advocate encouraging social conditions that are sexist if they reduce domestic and violent crime towards women? You know you can argue a case for Sharia law based on that?

What about if segregating blacks reduced the violence towards them by white bigots? Should they re-introduce segregation in the US?

What is this concept that sexism is "ok if....x is achieved" - that is just rediculous!

Even better - you are claiming that treating women as lesser beings "helped and protected them"?? Is this a serious claim? How about slave owners who "protected" their slaves from other whites? Did that justify the treatment of equals as lesser people?

Domestic violence occours because people are unhappy in todays society. It is not the increase in womens rights that has caused it, but much more likley the general state of disillusionment with society that a huge number of people have (especially in America). Do you claim that black violence in the ghettos is stemming from anything other then the disenfranchment of the black population? Then why claim violence against women is the result of women's rights increasing?

I think you some what missed my intended point. I'm simply pointing out that men and women are intrisically different (at this point I will omit an anatomy lesson ). Psychology has proven that men and women think differently; men, statisticaly, tend to be better at spatial processing and mathematics. Women, on the other hand, tend to be better communicators, and it is these differences that make us better suited for differing jobs. This is known to anthropologists as the division of labor,pre-homioid (I.E. chimps) females developed geneticaly to have traits that allowed them to better take care of the members of their group, where as males developed for hunting and competition. These traits were carried on as we evolved into humans, and were vital to the survival of the species. As civilization emerged, it grew to encompass these fundimental gender roles, and as such regardless of culture, it is the mother who is always the cairing, supportive and most loved. As the traditional gender roles that have been held in society are eroded that harm is coming to women and the rest of society from the breaking down of these institutions. I don't claim that sexism in most cases is harmful to the general well being of the group, just that as progress is made there are unintended concequences that we find as the new major issues we face today. It is my view that women most definitely deserve the right to choose how to best live their life, but also that they have the responsability to concider what effects the leaving of their genetically assigned posts will have on society as a whole, something that I find many females unwilling to address.

On domestic violence, much of this crime stems from people who are brought up in broken homes, people who are not properly socialized to respect individuals regardless of sex. These broken homes are more often than not homes where chivalry is dead, homes where husbands and wives constantly fight, the wife gets beaten and/or, divorce occurs. Without the loving attention from their mother and father these childern grow up not understanding how to treat others, because they themselves have no idea how they ought to be treated, hence violence against others, and a lack of respect for the general freedoms of others. They become dissilusioned with their own society that has mistreated them.

As to the subject of violence in afro-american communities, this largely sits on the above points. Divorce rates as high as 78% in some places lead to roughly the same amount of people who grow up dysfuntionally, therefore having higher tendancy to commit crimes.

For a broad recap, the decline of chivalry and the rise of womens rights, has been both a great achivement in that we have increased the freedom of our society, and effectivly increased our workforce by 52%, but it comes at the cost of our family stability, resulting in a society with new problems that are at least as troubiling as those we sought to solve. In the worst-case, epic, doomsday, will-probably-never-happen scenario with the wholesale destruction of the family unit we end up with a totally dysfuntional society where anarchy rules, and effectively nobody can live in freedom

 

[frekk]

I really don't know you can blame it on women's rights. By all indications, societies which don't have such things see much more violence towards women. I think you're seeing the past with somewhat rosy glasses, the "good old days" that never were. Domestic violence was actually institutionalized in the past - for instance, "lawful correction", in the UK, the right of husbands to beat their wives, only went out in the 1700s, and was a legitimate defence even to murder charges. There are still attempts to use it as a defence against infanticide from time to time (eg People vs Forbs 1965).

 

[MCincy]

Once again...

I DO NOT claim that sexism did not cause harm to women and to larger society. All I hope to point out is that in abolishing these terrable institutions we have created new monsters that are just as problematic. As this is the case we have little recourse but to acknowledge that this progress was attained at a very high price.

 

[frekk]

Well I'll agree that new challenges have arisen. Personally I think it's more to do with commercialism than anything else, it's just lowered all social values to a sort of minimal level. The whole instant gratification thing, it just causes people to get frustrated and violent with each other because of their increased sense of immediate entitlement.

Although I do also somewhat see that blurring the lines could become quite dangerous, as it is now for instance the majority of murders are males killed by other males, so one might expect that as gender perceptions are blurred, females will move towards equality in some not-so-positive statistics (like the murder victim population).