I never quite know where I stand on this whole chivalry-in-the-post-feminist-age thing. I do know a few things I believe to be true:
1) When a guy opens the door for me, I’m not offended.
2) If a man tells me I “wouldn’t be interested in such-and-such trip” because it’s going to be all “manly and rugged”, I am offended.
3) I want to be swept off my feet sometimes.
4) I want to be allowed to stand on my own two feet all the time.
5) I don’t want any man to think they’re doing me a favor by allowing me to stand on my own two feet at all times. It should be a given. There should be no question, no allowance.
6) I like feeling like a girl.
7) I acknowledge the contradictions and feel bad for all the well-meaning men who are trying to sort through them in order to do the right thing by women.
The real point is that if you want to truly cash in on the core feminist ideals, you have to stop being such a damn feminist. Reality is what you make of it; if you conduct your life in such a way as to genuinely not acknowledge any difference in importance and capability between men and women, only then are you truly doing everything you can to promote gender equality. Get offended when a man opens a door for you? Would you get offended if a woman did the same thing? Probably not. There’s your damn gender bias.
And so the battle continues, only because it continues in your mind. Dear femi-nazis, you talk all the time about wanting everyone to be seen as “just people”, not as “men” and “women”, (and aesthetically, we’re a generation well on our way to that) yet you refuse to stop seeing the menfolk as the enemies of our liberty.
I’m not saying that there aren’t sexist, chauvinistic, silly men with rusty views of the world who could use a good talkin’ to, but in general, I think most of us on Team Gal are, well, overreacting. I mean, you take innocuous, normal generous acts from the opposite sex as having misogynistic undertones and then freak out on Innocent McNiceMan and then we wonder why we’re a group of people who are frequently identified by unreason and spiraling hormones.
We have to stop looking for a fight. Because we’ll always find things to be offended about if we’re pre-programmed to look for it. Feminists have become the social hypochondriacs of the 21st century. We haven’t won the war but we’re light years ahead of where we once were…and the rest is going to be won by example and practicing what we preach, not by confrontation and anger.
What we really ought to be doing is acting as post-feminism goodwill ambassadors. As a girl with more than her share of men-friends, let me tell you: they are confused as hell. And why shouldn’t they be? Women nowadays are torn between wanting classic romance and demanding to not be treated like a precious little flower. Um, excuse me? We have to realize that at many crossroads, those two ideals are mutually exclusive; you simply can’t have both all the time. And the female demand to have both is making men not know where the line is…are they being romantic and chivalrous or are they being sexist pigs?
I do sincerely believe that at this point, men are trying. They want to be the right thing in relation to women; to be our knights in shining armor, while at the same time not being seen as wing-clippers. Like I said, they need our help. Continuing with this angry fight for our rights isn’t going to cut it anymore. It’s our responsibility as the group who forcibly shattered everything that was pre-set about gender relations to be kind and diligent about working with men to put together something new about how to treat us now that they can understand. Something that makes sense.
Spunkygirl26
28 / Female
Comments: 1
Posted on December 10, 2009, 10:22 pm
I'm in complete agreement! :) Great article!
Charliephoenix
37 / Male
Comments: 1
Posted on December 16, 2009, 10:54 pm
I glad a girl talks about it. You don't how hard is for guy to figure out the way make a woman happy. Sometimes if you are trying to be a gentleman you can be accused to been "the nice guy", and if you are firm and showing security, you are seem as a "jerk". Thank you for that article I think more woman needs to read it.
