posted by Caleb on Mar 26
Chivalry was the word used to describe the code of conduct that once applied to mounted knights during medieval times. In modern times, it has come to represent courteous, gallant, or dignified behavior by a man towards a woman. A contemporary definition of a chivalrous man could be “a man who recognizes the inherent differences between men & women and acts in the most courteous and respectful manner possible towards a woman.” Of course, in our modern age, to suggest that a woman isn’t perfectly capable of doing anything a man can do will most certainly bring out the lynch mobs.
So what happened to chivalry? When did we as men stop opening doors, walking women home, or offering them our jackets? I don’t honestly know, but it is quite apparent that courteous behavior towards women by men is the exception, rather than rule. I have a theory as to what exactly went wrong.
A little backstory is necessary, though. This weekend, my wife and I went out with a few of our friends, and I as the sober driver had the fascinating opportunity to observe the actions of the male species as regarding the female species. As a general rule, males both sober and drunk would gravitate towards the “easy prey”, the more intoxicated a female grew, the more male attention she would receive. Of course, the intent of the males in this situation was not to safeguard the girls had made themselves vulnerable, but rather to take advantage of said vulnerabilities.
Men have an innate animal desire to protect women - it used to be necessary for the survival of the species. The average man is stronger, faster, and has better reflexes than the average woman, which makes him better suited to defend the women of the tribe/clan/village against predatory animals, rivals from other tribes, etc. Of course, as we’re no longer a tribal society, such physical protection is rarely a necessity.
However, as my history professor was fond of saying, nature is a bitch. In as much as we grown past the need to protect the women of the tribe, the male instinct to protect women has remained; however there seems to be less nurturing of that instinct by fathers. Without a guiding hand to develop the protective instinct in young men, it seems that it has turned into an almost predatory instinct. While men are still quite perfectly capable of recognizing weakness & vulnerability in women, it seems that now instead of acting to safeguard against it, they move to exploit the weaknesses.
Returning back to my weekend excursion, I was able to view this theory in action, repeatedly. As my female friends grew more intoxicated, the amount of young men attempting to “move in” increased. Fast forwarding to the end of the evening, one of our friends was intoxicated to the point of being debilitated, and generally couldn’t move under her own power without a steadying hand. I was able to observe a number of sober individuals attempt to separate our intoxicated friend from the company of my wife, ostensibly to “take care of her”. Why one individual man would think that he could do a better job of caring for a drunk woman than the three women and one man she was with is beyond me; yet I doubt that their motivations were at all altruistic.
We were able to conclude the exercise and place said debilitated friend in the car safely. I was happy about that, as once in the car I was able to retrieve my personal armaments, of which I had been deprived of for the course of the evening.
The other incident I’d like to relate had to do with a different friend, whom we’ll call Elena. Elena is engaged, and her fiance is a friend. He declined to join us that evening, I believe that he was not feeling up to the task of being surrounded by yelling drunks for 5 hours (I can’t say as I blame him). He and Elana live a scant five blocks from the bar district, which is easily withing walking distance. During the day. If you’re sober. Elena, who fancies herself something of a feminist, declared in her rather intoxicated state that she was “fine to walk home”. Four blocks. At 4am. While drunk.
As you no doubt guessed, I objected strongly to this course. Not because I don’t think that Elena is a tough, capable woman (which she is), but because letting a young lady who is engaged to friend walk home four blocks at 4am while is simply not something that you do. If a “friend” of mine allowed my wife to walk home in similar circumstances, he would not be my friend for much longer. I once received harsh words from my father for neglecting to open the door for Mrs. Ahab; the concept of letting someone walk home is simply foreign to me.
After some protestation, Elena accepted the hospitality of my vehicle and was transported without incident to her house. The two combined incidents have prompted a significant amount of thought on my part.
We need to get back to basics. There is nothing inherently wrong in acknowledging that women and men are different, that women sometimes need to be protected, and men were designed to do that job. There’s nothing sexist about realizing that a woman walking home while intoxicated is a more likely target for an assault than a man walking home alone from a bar. That’s just statistics.
So how do we fix this? We need to teach boys when they are boys how to grow up to be men. The excessive infantilization of young men and the extension of childhood into the early 20’s doesn’t benefit anyone, least of the “future leaders” of America. We have to reverse the politically correct trend of pretending that men and women are the same, because newsflash: We’re not.
