Recently, I met a woman of about 30 at place where she and I go regularly. She and I engaged in some brief conversation, and she said she was a feminist. I thought, "Wonderful, always a pleasure to meet a comrade in our struggle for social justice." A couple of days later, she and I were in the same place, though we weren't talking, and she made a loud comment to no particular person about the lack of chivalry being practiced by a couple of guys who were well able to hear her. Specifically, they were going to get some of their stuff of a shelf, and a couple of girls, who had some stuff in the same place, were also going to get it. The guys got their shortly before the girls, and thus got their stuff first. This so called feminist, then proceeded to rant about how they should have let the girls go first. The guys, hearing her rant, put their stuff back and walked away, looking ashamed. I fully understand that this is a tiny incident, but I was disgusted by the message that this so called "feminist" is sending to guys. The very concept of chivalry revolves around the idea the women are weaker than men, and can't or shouldn't perform basic tasks. It is my opinion that chivalry is a misogynist tradition. In fact, I would even go so far as to call it an attack on womens social equality. Only people that actually think women are weak fell the need to treat them that way. Yet here is a so called "feminist" embarrassing guys into acting that way.
I think this is a small example of a much bigger problem. It makes me wonder how many "feminists" are out there doing things like that, destroying our cause from the inside out by preaching misogynist traditions. I have had lengthy discussions with guys on this subject, who wonder how to deal with the fact that, if female in there presence (particularly one that they are interested in) is a believer in tradition, and he treats her like an equal, she will be offended, and if she wants to be treated like an equal, and he treats her with chivalry, she will also be offended, and there are no obvious signs of how she wants to be treated. I tell them that if they want a person who will be weak and submissive, they should practice chivalry, because those are the type of people who will want it. On the other hand, if they want to be with someone with a real personality who isn't so submissive and weak, they should avoid chivalry. This confusion among guys, and occasionally even among women, is caused largely by people like the "feminist" I met a while ago. I think that sort of person may be a bigger threat to our cause than the outward misogynists.
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andromeda posted at August 30, 2008, at 02:38AM: "I have had lengthy discussions with guys on this subject, who wonder how to deal with the fact that, if female in there presence (particularly one that they are interested in) is a believer in tradition, and he treats her like an equal, she will be offended, and if she wants to be treated like an equal, and he treats her with chivalry, she will also be offended, and there are no obvious signs of how she wants to be treated."
It can get even more confusing when the same gesture can be made for chivalrous or simply polite reasons.
For example, two strangers A and B approach a door in public. A gets there first, holds open the door, and lets B go through first before A goes through. If A is female, and/or if A and B are the same gender, then it's obviously not chivalry. If I'm B and A is male, maybe he's being chivalrous but then again for all I know A is just polite and does this for guys too...
Personally, I think chivalry is great-- but it should extend beyond men-to-women to a politeness amongst everybody. Holding doors open for others is nice. Letting others go first is nice. Helping others when needed is extra-nice. Although I appear to be a cisgendered woman, I always do my best to go out of my way to be nice to people in little ways.
Yes, I get some funny looks when I, a twenty year old who is fairly pretty by society's silly ideals, hold open the door for my coworkers (most of whom are middle-aged or older priveleged white mails). Some even fight me for control of the door when I get there first. But everyone usually gets used to it, and I hope everyone (male, female, and anywhere else on the spectrum) will follow my example and extend chivalry to everyone in their lives.
Of course, that probably doesn't fit the standard definition of the word, but there you go. That's just what chivarly is to me. LOL. :P
I forgot to say-- on the way the self-described feminist reacted in your post, I agree that it is somewhat disturbing behavior for someone who promotes equality. While I champion POLITE behavior, that doesn't mean the men were being jerks by grabbing their stuff before the women. For all this feminist knows, maybe the ladies were being polite in letting the men get their belongings before them. I don't think they were being rude or anything, and I can definitely see why it would bother you.
Have you tried to talk to her about it? Maybe she grew up being taught to believe in chivalry and has just never thought about how chivalry can be un-feminist, or maybe her concept of feminism actually supports chivalry. (I agree with you that it's not, but I know there are honest feminists who think otherwise.)
First off, I think holding the doors open for people is fun. I used to do it all the time. A really fun memory I have was with my roommate at the time's family at a restaurant. Her little cousins and I made a game of holding the doors for everyone who came there while we waited to be called. It was really fun and the people who came to the restaurant enjoyed it too and would tell us how funny it was to have people holding the doors for everyone. I don't know, I get the chance to hold a door for someone and I get this altruistic excitement and I think that its awesome. Sort of like for a brief second I get to interact and engage with someone in this really nice and positive way.
I don't know... but I think the kind of stuff above and described by others is different (although it might be hard to tell what a person's reasons are for doing it). After I began to transition (that's me with being trans) I quickly noticed some changes in those very prone to chivalry. Now that I'm regularly identified as a young woman there is a lot more of this. At first I was almost confused by it. I remember one guy came back to the door after he had already passed through, held it open, and started apologizing while his girlfriend waited for him, and I didn't even know what was going on. "Excuse me?" I asked. "The door, I let the door close on you. Again, I'm really sorry." Although the apparent rudeness there was something I hadn't noticed at all. But now when it happens or when a guy lets me go before him, I mean I know that its because I’m being identified as a woman and he’s doing it out of this sense of chivalry.
On some level it can be sort of nice, I guess. Like... after high school (during high school I was picked on a lot) guys pretty much didn't really take much of any notice of me and now that I’m seen as a girl some guys are nice and polite and smile and that is sort of nicer in some ways (again some guys aren't any of these things, and I'm talking here more about the politeness in some public settings with some guys... okay, there is a lot of crap here too since I also feel like there is just way more attention being brought on me by both men and women in looks and being noticed or examined... and I don't know, I think I'm still figuring this out, but I thought I should say that in my experience it isn't all nice, but in some ways it is a little bit). However, I also feel like in doing this they almost distance themselves from me... I’m having trouble finding the words to describe it. I have one friend, a really nice guy in a lot ways who I've known for years. The last couple times I've seen him I can tell that he's trying to be so polite and respectful when I'm around. Its a little like the way I've seen him behave around other women, and on some level maybe he's just getting comfortable with our friendship again, but for me it feels like his politeness places him further away. Its sort of like its hard for us to connect in the same way we did as friends...
I don’t know. Now that I’m thinking about it I used to hold the door open for men and women both, but I don’t really remember the last time I did that. Wonder what would happen if I held the door open for a guy.
I think you should talk to this woman about your feelings about this and how it contradicts with what feminism means to you. We all struggle with internalized sexism, racism, heterosexism, etc. and maybe she has just never critiqued her ideas of chivalry through a feminist lense, even though she may support the ERA, be prochoice, anti-violence and rape, etc, which causes her to call herself a feminist. I think that the fact she identifies as a feminist probably means she would be open to a discussion about gender roles and sexism and how each of you define feminism and what role it plays in your lives.
I think an important part of feminist conciousness raising is helping each other overcome internalized sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, etc. We can't expect each other to be perfect feminists, but we can help each other be better people.
yes there are some women who use whatever argument they can to force men to do things that woman wants.
and yes there are some men who use whatever argument they can to force women to do things that man wants.
both are wrong.
but utopia would be a boring place to live, and it takes a lot of consistent equal continuing education to get things gender equal. no I'm no grammar major and I have had to change many of these words with the built in spell checker, but the point that needs to be made is there are many alpha wannabe's on all sides of the gender fence, that are more interested in forcing others to do things a certain way instead of just letting people be people.
It really has nothing to do with any movement, but there are all kinds of wolves in all kinds of disguises.