Chivalry, as it is seen today, doesn't have anything to do with knights, courts, courtly love, or "favors" (tokens of unrequited love). Chivalry today has to do with a code on how men should treat women. These include: opening doors for women, giving a woman your jacket if she's cold, opening her door, pulling her chair out for her... on and on.
What's wrong with how women were treated? Why should chivalry be dead?
I mean, if you start looking back on women's rights, it's deplorable. Women were not seen as equals. Even Elizabeth I said, "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too." Jane Austen dedicated her energy highlighting the struggles of women living under the laws where they couldn't inherit property, they couldn't work, and they couldn't vote. Without a white male family member taking care of them, women were destitute. Around 1900, women were started to be allowed to hold property, control property, and control their earned incomes if they worked. In 1920 women were allowed to vote. The 1970's marked an era of bra burning and formula feeding as women fought the traditional family structure that their place was in the home.
When I start thinking of chivalry, I start thinking of how men would treat their property. How would you treat an expensive purchase? How would you treat someone else's expensive purchase? How would you want someone to treat your expensive purchase?
These can be applied to women. How would I treat my woman? How would I treat someone else's woman? How would I want someone to treat my woman?
And that's why I feel chivalry should be dead. Why do people-- men and women-- feel this code is beneficial in modern times? This is completely outdated. Does the code of chivalry apply in today's day and age? I just don't feel a man should treat a person differently because they are a woman. I don't feel that the laws of chivalry will help fix the discrepancies in the work place or sexual harassment problems. There shouldn't be a gap in how one group of people is treated (females) and how another group is treated (males). The laws of chivalry are basically a form of segregation.
What I feel is better would be good manners. Manners (while historically sexist) can be modernized to fit and meet the needs of all genders and situations. Manners dictate that all people should be treated with dignity, respect, and kindness.
If a person is behind you (male or female) with their arms full (say, pushing a baby carriage or holding items), why don't you hold the door open for them. If a person is going through a hard time, manners allow you to be sympathetic to them. Manners allow you to treat people with respect through all the different areas of their life: through a pregnancy, a sexual transition, a hard break up, coming out, mental health concerns. Whatever the circumstance, good manners allow you to give people dignity and humanity and to receive it in return.
Manners do not mean you agree with everyone's personal life choices, but manners don't force you to apply your moral code or expectations on other people and expect them to follow them. Manners don't mean you have to be intimately involved with people's private concerns, unless you and them choose for you to be. Manners make sure that before you handle a situation, you are first treating someone as a person with human rights.
Taking my own experiences and the experiences of my girlfriends, there is a problem with how women are treated in our culture. The burden of family life has been put on the shoulders of women and our careers are encouraged as long as we still make our home life and childbearing our primary concern. While there are many men who do actively participate in family life, it is still seen that the men are "helping" the woman with any tasks they complete.
I know in my own marriage, my husband is very involved with our kids and our household chores, but often he will tell me that he "helped" me when those tasks are done. I've noticed this same trend with my friends and their marriages and with other women I talk to. As a stay-at-home parent, I rarely get any sympathy for this. Often I hear, "Well, isn't that your job?" I, the stay-at-home parent, do agree to some extent that it is my job and am very active, organized, and energetic in completing my responsibilities. However, my responsibilities cannot be completed during the hours my spouse is at work. My responsibilities do not have a clear checklist or overtime. My responsibilities also go past what a stay-at-home parent should be required to do.
For instance, if my husband did not have me and he was in his same profession, would he hire a housekeeper/maid? Would he hire a personal chef? Would he hire a personal assistant? Would he hire an interior designer? Would he hire a personal stylist? Would he hire a yard service? If something happened to me now and he had our 5 children, would he hire a live-in nanny? In all reality, he would have a housekeeper, at best. But, even then, he would be tidying/cleaning up himself in between cleanings. He would do his own laundry and make his own bed. He would cook his own meals. He would run his own errands. He would decorate his own house and keep it appropriately tidy himself. He would shop for his own clothes or hunt down that shirt he told me he wanted or find his own sales. He would do the weeding and mowing and trash removal. He would get the kids ready every morning and get them to school and pick them up and do their homework and get them fed and ready for bed. He would be up at night with them and present all day with them, when the school calls or when they are having a bad day. So where's the line? What is my defined job? Because some days, I can get all of that done. And some days I can't. But all days, I'm supposed to somehow get all of that done and not be in sweatpants and have clean kids and hot meals ready and-- let us never forget-- be agreeable without complaining.
This is where I feel like manners are important over chivalry. I do not have a unique ability to handle these household responsibilities due to my gender. I made the choice to support my spouse's career when it started being too much of a demand on our time and finances. We couldn't balance my time and our family size. I made the choice to be home. And now I am making the choice to pursue my degree full time and I hear, "How will you do all that and get dinner on the table each night?" (Edited to clarify: MY HUSBAND HAS NEVER SAID THIS TO ME.) Manners say, "Thank you for the time you have put towards your family." Chivalry says, "It is your place to tend to your family." Manners say, "If you can manage 5 kids, you are going to do great going back to school!" Chivalry says, "But who will be there for the children every day? Who will make dinner?"
We as women tend to treat people how we want to be treated. And we as women get treated as women-- a second class in the society who's place is primarily in the home and who's work life should never overstep the home life. Is this same burden placed on men? No. While home does not always interfere with work life, men are receive two responses when home life does interfere with their work life: 1. they are seen as exceptionally supportive of their wives and children or 2. their wives are seen as exceptionally incompetent for not being able to better handle home life.
As women, we should shake off chivalry. We need good manners. We need the same courtesy extended to all people applied to us, just as we give it to those around us. We need to allow people the space to be themselves. We need to get in touch with who we are and have people around us who celebrate that. We need to acknowledge that women were not and have not been treated equal and we need to recognize when that is happening in our present lives and make a change.
And we should continue to change the world.
What's wrong with how women were treated? Why should chivalry be dead?
I mean, if you start looking back on women's rights, it's deplorable. Women were not seen as equals. Even Elizabeth I said, "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too." Jane Austen dedicated her energy highlighting the struggles of women living under the laws where they couldn't inherit property, they couldn't work, and they couldn't vote. Without a white male family member taking care of them, women were destitute. Around 1900, women were started to be allowed to hold property, control property, and control their earned incomes if they worked. In 1920 women were allowed to vote. The 1970's marked an era of bra burning and formula feeding as women fought the traditional family structure that their place was in the home.
When I start thinking of chivalry, I start thinking of how men would treat their property. How would you treat an expensive purchase? How would you treat someone else's expensive purchase? How would you want someone to treat your expensive purchase?
These can be applied to women. How would I treat my woman? How would I treat someone else's woman? How would I want someone to treat my woman?
And that's why I feel chivalry should be dead. Why do people-- men and women-- feel this code is beneficial in modern times? This is completely outdated. Does the code of chivalry apply in today's day and age? I just don't feel a man should treat a person differently because they are a woman. I don't feel that the laws of chivalry will help fix the discrepancies in the work place or sexual harassment problems. There shouldn't be a gap in how one group of people is treated (females) and how another group is treated (males). The laws of chivalry are basically a form of segregation.
What I feel is better would be good manners. Manners (while historically sexist) can be modernized to fit and meet the needs of all genders and situations. Manners dictate that all people should be treated with dignity, respect, and kindness.
If a person is behind you (male or female) with their arms full (say, pushing a baby carriage or holding items), why don't you hold the door open for them. If a person is going through a hard time, manners allow you to be sympathetic to them. Manners allow you to treat people with respect through all the different areas of their life: through a pregnancy, a sexual transition, a hard break up, coming out, mental health concerns. Whatever the circumstance, good manners allow you to give people dignity and humanity and to receive it in return.
Manners do not mean you agree with everyone's personal life choices, but manners don't force you to apply your moral code or expectations on other people and expect them to follow them. Manners don't mean you have to be intimately involved with people's private concerns, unless you and them choose for you to be. Manners make sure that before you handle a situation, you are first treating someone as a person with human rights.
Taking my own experiences and the experiences of my girlfriends, there is a problem with how women are treated in our culture. The burden of family life has been put on the shoulders of women and our careers are encouraged as long as we still make our home life and childbearing our primary concern. While there are many men who do actively participate in family life, it is still seen that the men are "helping" the woman with any tasks they complete.
I know in my own marriage, my husband is very involved with our kids and our household chores, but often he will tell me that he "helped" me when those tasks are done. I've noticed this same trend with my friends and their marriages and with other women I talk to. As a stay-at-home parent, I rarely get any sympathy for this. Often I hear, "Well, isn't that your job?" I, the stay-at-home parent, do agree to some extent that it is my job and am very active, organized, and energetic in completing my responsibilities. However, my responsibilities cannot be completed during the hours my spouse is at work. My responsibilities do not have a clear checklist or overtime. My responsibilities also go past what a stay-at-home parent should be required to do.
For instance, if my husband did not have me and he was in his same profession, would he hire a housekeeper/maid? Would he hire a personal chef? Would he hire a personal assistant? Would he hire an interior designer? Would he hire a personal stylist? Would he hire a yard service? If something happened to me now and he had our 5 children, would he hire a live-in nanny? In all reality, he would have a housekeeper, at best. But, even then, he would be tidying/cleaning up himself in between cleanings. He would do his own laundry and make his own bed. He would cook his own meals. He would run his own errands. He would decorate his own house and keep it appropriately tidy himself. He would shop for his own clothes or hunt down that shirt he told me he wanted or find his own sales. He would do the weeding and mowing and trash removal. He would get the kids ready every morning and get them to school and pick them up and do their homework and get them fed and ready for bed. He would be up at night with them and present all day with them, when the school calls or when they are having a bad day. So where's the line? What is my defined job? Because some days, I can get all of that done. And some days I can't. But all days, I'm supposed to somehow get all of that done and not be in sweatpants and have clean kids and hot meals ready and-- let us never forget-- be agreeable without complaining.
This is where I feel like manners are important over chivalry. I do not have a unique ability to handle these household responsibilities due to my gender. I made the choice to support my spouse's career when it started being too much of a demand on our time and finances. We couldn't balance my time and our family size. I made the choice to be home. And now I am making the choice to pursue my degree full time and I hear, "How will you do all that and get dinner on the table each night?" (Edited to clarify: MY HUSBAND HAS NEVER SAID THIS TO ME.) Manners say, "Thank you for the time you have put towards your family." Chivalry says, "It is your place to tend to your family." Manners say, "If you can manage 5 kids, you are going to do great going back to school!" Chivalry says, "But who will be there for the children every day? Who will make dinner?"
We as women tend to treat people how we want to be treated. And we as women get treated as women-- a second class in the society who's place is primarily in the home and who's work life should never overstep the home life. Is this same burden placed on men? No. While home does not always interfere with work life, men are receive two responses when home life does interfere with their work life: 1. they are seen as exceptionally supportive of their wives and children or 2. their wives are seen as exceptionally incompetent for not being able to better handle home life.
As women, we should shake off chivalry. We need good manners. We need the same courtesy extended to all people applied to us, just as we give it to those around us. We need to allow people the space to be themselves. We need to get in touch with who we are and have people around us who celebrate that. We need to acknowledge that women were not and have not been treated equal and we need to recognize when that is happening in our present lives and make a change.
And we should continue to change the world.
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-Kimber