The concept of chivalry has been so twisted by feminists and their boot-licking white knight minions that it is difficult to even imagine that there might once have been a noble core there. The common view of chivalry today is placing men in a subservient position in society. One of the automatically generated wordpress links on the bottom of my first post on chivalry was from a homeschooled young man who believes that his role as a man is to protect any woman who lacks the sense to come in out of the rain (H/T Badger Nation):
We now live in a society where a girl can walk outside, in the pouring rain, without a coat or umbrella and is no one offers their own coat or umbrella. Oh but surely that wouldn’t happen! Yes it would. Well, surely the homeschool movement is producing young men that would offer a hand! The instance I’m referring to happened at a homeschool event.
His view of young men as personal bodyguards and valets for modern young women fits very closely with Zed’s brilliantly crafted rework of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics titled The Three Laws of RoMANtics:
1. A manbot may not injure a woman being or, through inaction, allow a woman being to come to harm.
2. A manbot must obey any orders given to it by woman beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A manbot may protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
This farcical view is so common that it is hard to even imagine a scenario where chivalry might have some nobility to it. To see the potential for nobility we need to consider what knights were. Knights were powerful armed men of generally high economic and social status. An act of kindness or deference by such a man to someone weaker or lower in status to him is gracious in nature because of the real and immediate ability he possessed to do otherwise.
Click to see.
The photo linked above is the cover image for Moment of Truth In Iraq. Michael Yon wrote the book and was also the photographer who captured the famous image. He describes the events surrounding the photo in the book, which occurred immediately after a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Iraqi children receiving candy from US soldiers in a Stryker:
An Iraqi woman rushed little Farah out of the smoke and flames to sniper Sergeant Walt Gaya who, instead of pushing into sniper position, rushed Farah back to the medics. Major Mark Bieger saw Farah and scooped her up and rushed to a Stryker, but along the way Bieger kept stopping to hug her. Some of Farah’s relatives loaded into the Stryker and they rushed to the hospital where Farah died.
See Michael Yon’s blog post on the topic for more of his description. He also tells us more about Major Bieger on a separate post on the battle for Mosul (emphasis mine):
Deuce Four soldiers earned three Silver Stars and numerous Bronze Stars for valor in what would become the most storied battle in Mosul, setting the pace for the months ahead. The days and nights became a blur of steady combat, sometimes leaving the guns white hot: so hot, the bullets were visible flying though the barrels. Americans began naming roads after battles and events, like Seven-Body Road, where they found seven Iraqi corpses one morning, or Bieger Road, where Major Mark Bieger shot an insurgent who had pulled a pistol on his soldiers.
One of Yon’s core points in his book is how the quality of the Coalition Soldiers and Marines impressed the average Iraqi civilians and eventually convinced the neighborhood leaders to back them over the insurgents. They saw the Americans and Brits as tough as nails fighters whom the insurgents feared to stand and fight against. At the same time, they witnessed these hard as nails men expressing sincere concern for the welfare of Iraqi children. The power was in the contrast. A group of hardened fighters who only cared about themselves would have earned less respect. Even more so for a group of weak social workers carping about the children. According to Yon, this powerful contrast was a key reason for the success that coalition troops eventually experienced.
The powerful appeal to chivalry also lies in the contrast. However, the feminists and the white knight boot licker brigade want to appeal to the power of the contrast (the bait) while substituting an obligation of subservience in its place (the switch). I think most of us sense this in our gut, and many of the commenters on my last post articulated this problem quite well. However, I strongly suspect those advocating chivalry as male obligation haven’t really considered the feminist water they are carrying. They are only repeating the anti male slogans they have been drilled in since birth. Our homeschooled blogger provides perfect examples of this frame of mind:
And guys for the most part (especially those of my generation) are a waste of skin. Too harsh? I think not.
And later:
Why do we not see more gentlemen? Because men in general of zero character at best, and at worst are in the negatives (as in they suck what little character others have right out of them).
Fortunately our home-schooled blogging friend is by his own admission in the extreme minority in his acceptance of feminist-chivalric dogma. The vast majority of his peers (however schooled) have seen past the facade and haven’t been tricked into seeing their natural role as a servant and protector of women. Ironically this very rejection is a crucial ingredient for any act of real chivalry. Since real chivalry comes from a position of strength, it can only be offered by a man who is actually powerful and offers his assistance with full freedom and knowledge of his own worth.
The full freedom part is as critical as the rest, and is the reason chivalry can’t be an obligation of men as so many desperately wish to convince us. It isn’t just that it is a bad idea; making chivalry expected of men removes the graciousness of the act. Chivalry is a special form of graciousness and like all acts of graciousness must be a gift freely given; the instant you think of it as an obligation you have destroyed the very concept.
When my wife and I were in our 20s we lived in an apartment complex where all of the other residents were elderly. One day my wife saw an older woman struggling with her groceries and offered to take them to her apartment for her. The woman was very thankful, but not long after other residents started buzzing my wife on the intercom letting her know they had left their groceries in the entry way and what apartment they should be delivered to. In that context it became impossible for my wife to offer gracious help to our neighbors, no matter how much she wanted to do so. Her choice was to either become subservient or stop entirely, and she wisely chose the latter. Men wanting to be gracious in our current society are in exactly the same position my wife was in all of those years ago, and our choices are the same as well.
The true enemies of chivalry today are the feminists (elderly neighbors demanding we carry their groceries) and the white knights who would scold us for failing to snap to and serve our masters. In this doubly poisoned atmosphere chivalry is all but impossible, and nearly all who attempt it will inadvertently play the fool.
Note: I’ll share some thoughts in later posts on men acting as protectors as well as rendering assistance to stranded motorists.
See Also:
It seems to me that in a post-feminism world, chivalry is an element of character that should apply equally to both sexes. It should mean taking responsibility for a fellow human being, regardless of gender. Historically, men (the stronger sex) have been chivalrous toward women. One could argue that today, women are in a stronger position is some arenas – they certainly are stronger in higher education.
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24 years ago I was riding the T in Boston, 8 months pregnant. I got on to a crowded car and held on to a center pole as best I could. No one offered me a seat. After someone got off the train, a teenage girl “saved” their seat for me so that no one else could take it. Since then, I have tried to be generous (chivalrous?) to anyone of any age that looks like they could use a break.
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Chivalry is noble, but should not fall only to men.
Great post, Dalrock. I had great expectations for it, and you certainly did not disappoint.
There is aid for the downtrodden, but feminism has rammed down our throats that women are equal and men are the scourge of humanity. So when they do indeed fall, we MRAs really don’t buy their new change of spots. Leopards, and all that.
Basically, chivalry was neither intended to be a tool used to protect the less powerful from the stupidity of their own decisions nor intended to be used as a tool to help the equally powerful. Women, in the aggregate, have basically begun to make an increasing number of stupid decisions while simultaneously demanding and acquiring power that is equal to or greater than the power possessed by men. Unsurprisingly, the amount of chivalrous behavior has significantly declined, since the number of women who actually qualify for receiving chivalric action has declined as well.
Ultimately, women are going to have to realize the simple reality that they can’t make stupid decisions without also accepting the responsibility of those decisions. Also, they will eventually have to realize how absurd it is to ask for more power while demanding that they be treated like they are powerless.
” Chivalry is a special form of graciousness and like all acts of graciousness must be a gift freely given; the instant you think of it as an obligation you have destroyed the very concept.”
This.
This perfectly sums up my feelings. I’d love nothing better than to be the “chivalrous, perfect gentleman” but when it’s demanded of me? Nah.
“It seems to me that in a post-feminism world, chivalry is an element of character that should apply equally to both sexes. It should mean taking responsibility for a fellow human being, regardless of gender. Historically, men (the stronger sex) have been chivalrous toward women. One could argue that today, women are in a stronger position is some arenas – they certainly are stronger in higher education.”
With all due respect,fuck chivalry. We’ve heard women’s BULLSHIT for so long, they’ve done so much damage, frankly, I say fuck ’em. You ain’t getting shit from me and I sure as hell don’t want anything from you. You’re equal now so pull out your own damned chair like an adult.
You forgot: the Socialists, who created that entitled group of elderly who are now “Socially Secure” and not “dependent” on any family members for support. They do not need to offer anything of value in return for the tax dollars mulcted from the young, so they live apart from family who might care for them. SS also creates this perverse incentive: your retirement well-being is based not on how well you raised YOUR kids, but on how well everyone else raised THEIR kids. It encourages parents to underinvest in their children to keep dollars for their own retirement; sure, the kids won’t produce as much, but if you actually DO raise productive children, most of the economic benefit of that will be transferred to others through taxation and social insurance.
Moral parents would not do this, but the incentives are there on the side of bad behavior.
femminism and womens current attitude towards men will not end due to male kindness. A generation of women need to live a life of male indifference. This is happening on it’s own . Men are giving up chivalry. What is truely amazing is high the educated modern women is completely clueless as to why chivalry is dead and yet demand and expect chivalry. The creuel arrogance of the femminized women is telling. One can go to a womens divorce celibration web site as see the comments. These woman are priviledged and live the easiest lives in history and are in a state of complaining hate. There priviledge is to be paid for by indifference to 6 and 7 your old girls today living lives into middle age with men seeing women purely as a source of burden,legal hassles and trouble in general. The worst thing of all these young girls/women will have no idea why and how to change it. And you may have guessed it the femminist and whiteknights will just double down on what got them there.
Here we are on a mens blogs and are given a realistic view of the issue of chivalry and a womens blog will be on how terrible men are now days.
Thanks Dalrock
When chivalry by men was appreciated by society and reciprocated by women behaving honorably, it made sense for men to be chivalrous. Now, society sees the noble man as a resource to be harvested from, and women see the noble man as a useful idiot.
Among women, and society at large, chivalry is a severe liability. Might as well wear a sign on your back that says “please insert knife here and take my wallet.”
However, it may still serve a purpose within small groups of men and women who treat one another honorably. So, rather than shutting one’s chivalry programming off altogether, just behave coldly towards the world at large and “switch on” your chivalry at the right time.
@Susan Walsh
24 years ago I was riding the T in Boston, 8 months pregnant. I got on to a crowded car and held on to a center pole as best I could. No one offered me a seat. After someone got off the train, a teenage girl “saved” their seat for me so that no one else could take it. Since then, I have tried to be generous (chivalrous?) to anyone of any age that looks like they could use a break.
I’m to blame for shirking out on defining chivalry. This is one of those things we all know what it is, but part of what I struggled with in writing my thoughts on it was simply identifying it. I think you are mixing what I would call courtesy and charity with what I would call chivalry. I think the key distinction would be whether the expectation (not sure that is the right word) applied solely or mostly to men, or if any adult fit member of society should be equally expected to offer (and perhaps eventually receive) the same assistance. Everything you describe is pretty much unisex, as you suggest. But there are a whole set of behaviors/courtesies/etc which apply only to men, with no counterexample which apply to women. These are what I would call chivalry. Drowning while others are saved was the most dramatic example that came to mind, but paying for dates, taking your hat off in specific situations, standing when a lady enters or exits, etc are all specific to men, with no female corollary. Providing protection and offering aid to stranded motorists are a bit more of a grey area, because in theory women could (and in practice some actually do) do the same. But the reality of these two is so far from parity that I would still say the burden of expectation falls on men. So those last two are quite often a case where women pretend the burden of expectation is equal but men know better.
I’m mildly incredulous that nobody else commented at that blog before me. Or maybe you all did, and the pansy deleted your comments?
Creative etymology to the rescue. Chevalier means “knight”. As in “white knight”. Also as in Maurice Chevalier, who sang “Zank Heaven for Little Girls” in a movie about prostitutes.
So chivalry is acting like a Frenchman besotted by coquettes and whores.
So chivalry is acting like a Frenchman besotted by coquettes and whores.
LOL I think that is just about the most accurate definition of what is going on today I have ever come across!!! Good one, Eumaios.
Excellent post. I hadn’t really thought of chivalry as something coming from a position of strength, but I think you are correct. As for the distinction between chivalry and courtesy or manners, chivlary entails sacrifice or at least the potential for sacrifice. The man who gives up a seat on a lifeboat so a woman can have the seat risks his life. The man who places his cloak over a mud puddle so a woman won’t have to step in the mud risks freezing. Chivalry is also the soldier who risks his life to carry a wounded buddy back to the chopper, even if that buddy is certain to die. The man who holds the door for a woman risks nothing, unless the woman is a man-hating feminist who will shove him out of the way on her way inside, then spit upon his prone body. Door holding is a courtesy, it is politeness, not chivalry. Although all of my examples of chivalrous acts are of men, women too can be chivalrous. But it is not expected of women. It is expected of men, but expectation is not obligation (I think this is an important distinction). Turning chivalry into an obligation is certainly one reason it is dying. The concept is destroyed when it becomes an obligation.
TDOM
Gigi never stops giving.
Or is it putting out? I get confused.
I should probably read the homechooler’s whole post before commenting, but if he is a religious homeschooler (meaning having been homeschooled because his parents believed homeschool is the only acceptable way for Chrsitians to educate their children), there is a lot going on there that explains his thinking. Worship of marriage, an imperative to have lots of kids, etc. In his defense, if he is a part of one of those communities, he has a probably seen many women worthy of high regard and will probably marry a chaste girl who has been taught to be productive, submissive wives.
In other words, he probably doesn’t live in the world the rest of lives in, and cannot fathom why men don’t hold women in higher regard.
Looking forward to your post on helping stranded motorists, Dalrock. My husband routinely stops to help both men and women when the scene seems safe enough.
I took a quick peek at the young man’s blog. There’s a link to Doug Phillip’s Vision Forum (whom I have big differences of opinion with) on the sidebar so I pegged him 100%. No need to read any further.
He does NOT routinely encounter the women the rest of do on a daily basis. If he does, he believes they are the way they are because of some deficiency or dereliction of duty on the part of the men in their lives.
[D: I came to the same conclusion based on his blanket condemnation of men his age along with the total lack of reflection on the morality of women his age.]
Your posts on chivalry and the discussion that has followed have been interesting dalrock. Early last year I came across an article on the subject that disgusted me but highlighted the entitlement of many women well. The woman who wrote the piece was whining about the fact she was at the airport with her small child and nobody helped her carry her bag…not even the group of uniformed soldiers who were flying in from Germany. A group of uniformed soldiers flying in from Germany is most likely a plane full of troops returning to the US for R&R leave, a group who hasn’t seen their families for at least six months, a group whose spouses have been shoveling their own gravel including carrying their own bags. Basically here is a group of largely men who have been sacrificing on behalf of the nation (or so the story goes) who haven’t done enough for this pampered princess. So it seems to go not only with soldiers in particular but men in general when it comes to chivalry.
[D: Great example. Instead of thinking about how much they were already giving, all she could think about is what she wanted from them (free valet service). To the extent that she really needed help, it was also likely because she decided she could travel alone with a small child (being strong and independent and all). Yet had she run into a true emergency the same men she wrote and thought critically of would be the most likely to stop and offer real assistance.]
One issue that I find unacceptable with chivalry is the notion that as a woman I am supposed to wait to be served rather than look for opportunities to serve. IMHO basic civility demands that I be looking for ways to ease the burden of another and that I be ready to help others out. If I’m not willing to roll up my sleeves and do work for others I have no right to expect others to do the same for me.
And so it goes in our Army social circle: we take care of our own. There have been times I’ve gotten calls at 2AM to meet a friend at the ER or that one of the women in our Family Readiness Group needs help changing a flat tire, has gone into premature labor, has some terrible plumbing emergency & needs help cleaning up, or whatever. I’ve served on the CARE Team when a soldier has died on five occasions now and have been “on call” for these families in the days after tragedy. And as just like several times before, there was recently a time I was the one making the calls to friends with medical expertise to provide guidance during an emergency situation with my husband. Both will repeat many times again I’m sure almost in an economic give and take fashion. Everybody in our group of friends gives so that the “help account” always stays full.
Sadly while I know many women who do contribute and can take care of themselves and their children in their husbands absence, I also know many who sit back and expect statutory volunteers like myself, the FRG officers, ACS volunteers, and so forth, to do everything for them. They feel as if they are entitled to have us solve their problems for them rather than seeing us as what we are: people who are there to help them help themselves. They take advantage of our kindness, compassion, and hard work much as they do the altruistic feelings of many others. In light of this, there must be a balance with civility for self-protection–the line between helper and fool, much as you and your wife learned in the above mentioned example.
I’m looking forward to your future posts on this subject, Dalrock. When you cover the protector and stranded motorist angles, are you going to factor in proper training to offer assistance (somebody with first responder/medical training vs somebody without), self-defense training/concealed carry, good Samaritan law variances by location, that sort of thing? I’d be quite intrigued to read a perspective that considers these real issues in a discussion of hypothetical chivalry.
[I probably won’t go into the level you are hoping for but I will touch on these areas from my own practical perspective. Hopefully whatever I miss is covered in the comments or by a more qualified blogger for the specific question.]
There is the dilemma in a nutshell.
The struggle to even define what we are talking about illustrates why the concept of chivalry itself has become problematic. Part of it is simply honorable and civilized behavior. Most civilizations have had an ethos of helping and being kind to the elderly. But it was understood by everyone to be graciousness at work and showed appreciation for that graciousness as the gift it really was. And that encouraged the giver to keep giving.
There was an exchange to the whole thing. A gracious act was seen to be the action of someone who was at least an equal, and not something to which the receiver was simply entitled to receive. My guess is that if the old folks had said something like “I’m really having a struggle with these groceries, dear, would you mind helping me with them? I just made some homemade vegetable soup which would make a nice start for dinner for you and your husband” that she would have seen things a bit differently.
Or, even if they had knocked on the door and asked her for her help in person, it would have been quite different. It is the phone call – notifying “the help” that they have a job to do – which turns the whole scenario quite offensive.
I see two issues at work here. First is the lack of reciprocity or symmetry – the sense of entitlement to receive civilized behavior without any obligation to return it, even so much as a simple “thank you.” Second is a redefinition of social behaviors which were previously considered civility into power struggles. Crella just left an interesting comment to my post which Dalrock references above about this power struggle aspect which even she, as a woman, encounters with other women. http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/01/03/the-three-laws-of-romantics/#comment-62299
It is this redefinition of everything in terms of so-called “power” which I think is the biggest part of the problem. As Dalrock pointed out, a chivalrous act does come from a position of strength. The feminist/Marxist redefinition of all human interaction in terms of “power” indicates a realization of this, along with a resentment of it. From the extremist position, holding the door open for “a lady” can thus be seen as bragging “I have power.”
The flip side is what seems to be causing all the confusion. Women want to retain the gracious behavior from men that they used to receive in the past, but redefine it’s meaning. It’s no longer a “gift” from men which they can choose to give or not – depending on whether or not they consider the receiver to be “a lady.” It is now simply the entitlement of anyone born with a vagina – any woman being – to receive without any form of reciprocity. This makes it exploitation.
Following Eumaios’s method of creative etymology above 😉 a “gentleman” was literally a man who was gentle – by choice. He could either be gentle, or not gentle, depending on who he was dealing with.
However, the compulsion to be gentle, even in those situations which don’t merit it, seems to be interpreted by people’s animal natures as weakness. Women don’t like nice guys because they see them as weak guys. They like assholes because they have been taught to confuse lack of civility with strength.
As a friend of mine once put it, “Never mistake kindness for weakness.”
“Everybody in our group of friends gives so that the “help account” always stays full.”
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!!!!!!!!!!
Women have emptied the “help account” with their attitude of entitlement that their role is only to receive while men’s role is only to give.
You are a real darling, Hestia. Your husband is one lucky man!!!
Writing about the incident in Iraq, you said: “The power was in the contrast.” This is entirely consistent with the view expressed by C S Lewis in the article I linked to on the previous post…”The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.”
Susan remarked that in today’s world, chivalry needs to apply to both sexes. Indeed, the more power a person or a group of people has, the more important it becomes that they have an orientation toward showing mercy to those who are utterly in their power. In the Middle Ages when chivalry was first defined, women had little political or executive power and no combat power…not so today.
I tried commenting on the homeschooling highschoolboy’s blog, but my first two comments seemed to go into moderation, probably because of the links I provided to various people in the manosphere, to help him break his chains. I guess we’ll see if he frees his mind, or prefers to stay in chains. (Like Terry, I noticed that link to Vision Forum, too, and so I have my doubts, knowing what those kind of folks are like. But one can hope and pray.)
I think beta males get in trouble assuming chivalry leads to nobility, when its the other way around.
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I guess we’ll see if he frees his mind, or prefers to stay in chains.
What appears to be happening, to an outside observer, is that the religious community is turning to cannibalism due to the fact that their herd of food animals has migrated somewhere else. This is a downward spiral to self-destruction because the more of their own they consume, the hungrier they will end up being.
I think men openly mocking white knights is probably a pretty effective strategy. In their mind these guys are taking a bold stand which other men are sure to admire. They see this as making them into leaders of other men. When real men laugh at them all of LJBF “atta boy’s” from women won’t make up for the lack of respect from other men.
Edit: I should add that this is why I didn’t hesitate to link to the homeschooler’s blog. Unless the blog is dead he will see the traffic and show up out of curiosity. My guess is he will be quite shocked at how other men view him, and that there wasn’t a swarm of women rushing to his protection. He acted like a buffoon and expected to be rewarded for it. Learning otherwise is the best gift we can offer him. Since he is young there is still plenty of time for him to learn what real manliness is.
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That picture always makes me cry. Michael Yon did some great reporting from Iraq and also stayed on to document the aftermath – some of the successes – that no MSM outlet bothered to cover.
That homeschooled blogger, cripes. I’m all for homeschooling but this dude would have been better off in the regular school system, and coming from me that’s saying something.
Chivalry is a special form of graciousness and like all acts of graciousness must be a gift freely given; the instant you think of it as an obligation you have destroyed the very concept.
This reminds me of why I hate “special days” – like adults buying each other birthday and Christmas presents, for instance, but the worst is probably Valentine’s day – just think of all the fights and bust ups that happen over Valentine’s day! lol It’s a day of obligation, and I don’t want anyone to buy me some crap because they think if they don’t, I’ll throw a tantrum. Better to just buy me something on a random day and agree to not take part in commercial days of obligation – because of course, if I say “only buy me something if you feel like it,” then he doesn’t, I can say “you don’t even feel like buying me something for Valentine’s day?! WAAAH!” and if he does, I’ll think he only did it to avoid the preceding… It saves everyone a lot of agro to just agree to do something else that day, or just make a dinner together, something that doesn’t buy into the BS. Maybe it’s because I don’t like sweets, but I’d rather do steak and a BJ day . 😛
You never hear a man making a fuss because his girlfriend didn’t buy him a gift, open a door for him, put the toilet seat back up… No wonder men eventually get turned off; the way a lot of women behave is pathetic.
@ Thag:
I hate Valentine’s Day! How can you schedule a day for people to express their romantic feelings for one another? It’s insane. My friends say I feel that way because my anniversary is later in February so I can afford to disniss Valentine’s Day. But if we’d gotten married in June, I’d STILL hate Valentine’s Day.
“I’d rather do steak and a BJ day . “
Darlin’!!! 😉
The other thing about Valentine’s day is that it’s obnoxious. It’s like Charlie Brown’s Christmas except for single people: “I already know I’m single, why do we need a holiday to emphasise it?”
lol zed – I told you already I love you (I forget why now, but it was something or other you said on the Spearhead). 😉
Cue cries of “get a room!”
When the seven dwarfs(read betas), enraged at the poisoning of Snow White, chased the wicked witch into the river and she drowned, were they chivalrous?
From a practical point, protecting innocent young women from the Whispers of the Wicked Witch, Baba-Yaga, or whatever you want to call the nasty old hags seems chivalrous to me.
Note: the dwarves never got the girl either. But you really couldn’t call them white knights either, they expected her to cook and clean and all that.
So, chivalry, yeah or nea? It’s SOMETHING though.
they expected her to cook and clean and all that
She volunteered without even asking what the dwarves wanted, actually. Grumpy was a bit cheesed off at the lack of dirt, as I recall. So I don’t think they expected anything, but maybe they were grateful? Snow White, of course, was the nicest of nice girls you could possibly imagine, hardly comparable to the average woman these days, who tend to demand a lot more than they provide, unlike Snow White.
Another thing is that the dwarves seemed to be doing fine before Snow White came along anyway and with her came a world of trouble, so make what you will of that, lol.
@ PT
I haven’t seen the movie in a while, but I think it is an example of chivalry working properly. The dwarves may not be alphas, but they were in a position of power. They did not have to provide assistence and weren’t obligated. They did risk their own personal safety and well-being. I don’t recall that they ever placed any demands upon Snow White. She did cook and clean, but if I recall correctly, she did it of her own accord as a way of demonstrating gratitude and appreciation for the assistance offered by the dwarves.
TDOM
We are on the same page here. I repost a comment I made on the Spearhead 3 weeks ago.
“As I see it chivalry can only come from a position of power and without obligation. A chivalrous act is something that a person of power spontaneously does to a person with much less power to bridge the gap, so that some interaction can ensue, or just for the person of power to enjoy the feeling of being so powerful and/or protected in his power that he does not have to guard his power 24/7.
“Inter pares” relations are based on reciprocity, where there is no room for chivalry because there is no gap to bridge.”
Well, tickle me pink, I agree with Susan Walsh on something — her first comment hit the nail on the head. I even pretty much agree with Dalrock (though his conflation of feminists with women who demand chivalry is puzzling to me).
Dalrock is 100% right that the whole concept of chivalry (in the gendered sense of the term) is grounded in an assumption of greater male power, both social and physical. In its ceremonial forms, chivalry is an elaborate kabuki ritual designed to reassure a woman that a man will not use his greater power to push the woman around (and perhaps designed to remind the man that he is not to do so). But our society has changed and chivalry is obsolete– and, as a feminist, I thank God for it. I cherish the actual social power I enjoy as an equal citizen in our society. I certainly would never trade it for all the chairs pulled out and doors opened for my mother; nor would I trade it for assistance changing a tire or a chance on the lifeboat of the Titanic.
To go back to Susan’s point, however, there should be an ethic of the strong-helping-the-weak. It’s just that in our society strong and weak or no longer determined based on gender. I also note that a person who is strong in one situation may be weak in another. For example, I may know how to change a tire better than someone, but perhaps she knows how to rescue me from drowning. Or a big strong man who carries heavy boxes for women may one day become elderly or disabled, and need help from someone carrying boxes for him.
I am also intrigued by Dalrock’s notion that chivalry are a voluntary acts, by which a more powerful person chooses to help someone of lower stature. In other words, acts of chivalry (certainly in their ceremonial forms) are literally acts of condescension.
This is interesting to me because social conservatives (not Dalrock necessarily, but others) often complain at feminists who are offended by the act of a man opening a day or paying for a date. But when viewed as the condescending act it is (which Dalrock hints at), the offense taken by a feminist is understandable, no? Women don’t like to be patronized any more than men do.
(CAVEAT: I should say that I do not approve of being rude to men who pull out chairs and the like– and I have never personally met a feminist who has greeted a chivalric gesture rudely. After all, some men are just doing what they have always been taught; some are genuinely attempting to express kindness. But the symbolic meaning of chivarly is ultimately a passive-aggressive statement of power over a woman. I truly think society will be better off with more gender-neutral manners, and I am pretty sure women can cope with changing their own tires or calling triple-A, asking men out on dates and paying for them (and yes, I have put my money where my mouth is on that one), and certainly remembering to bring an umbrella when it is raining out!)
“I haven’t seen the movie in a while, but I think it is an example of chivalry working properly. The dwarves may not be alphas, but they were in a position of power. ”
Hasn’t anybody seen Ghostbusters II? The seven dwarves had a limited partnership in a small mining operation, and they bartered housekeeping services for room and board. This was great because they didn’t have to pay income tax or social security (but that was a long time ago so princesses living in the complex cleaning might be counted as imputed income these days.)
Thanks Thag. I just came back from an errand and my wife informed me that I need to clear my calendar on March 14th.
Ha ha ha! Always happy to be helpful. 🙂
I agree that it is totally obnoxious, but from an entirely different perspective. When I listen to ads for the upcoming orgy of materialism, they all seem to pretty much break down into two categories – either guilt trips or threats of emotional terrorism. A couple of years ago I kept track of how many fit into which category, and it came out to about 80/20 terrorism/guilt. Threats to be exiled to the couch seemed to most popular, with a subtext of “we know you are going to screw it up, let us save you from an emotional beating” coming in second place.
I find it odd that women object so little to being painted as such materialistic monsters. I like being single, but I like it most from mid January through VD. To me, the harassment and threats pervert the entire concept of “love” more than just about anything else could.
Last Feb 13th I was riding in the elevator with 2 construction workers doing work in our building. One of them looked like he was headed for an appointment where he got to choose between the gallows and a firing squad. I wasn’t really listening to their conversation, but did hear him say something about “wife.” When he got off I looked at the other guy and said “Valentine’s Day anxiety, eh?” and the guy split a gut laughing.
I’ve always been of the opinion that there is only one kind of woman from whom a man buys love. We all know what they are called.
I agree, those ads are awful. I always hated those too. Unfortunately, it does seem a lot of women are that materialistic. It used to bother me seeing whiny princesses get everything they whined for while I didn’t seem to get all that much, but I just couldn’t bring myself to act like that for a bunch of flowers or whatever – if I want flowers that badly I can buy them myself, since it’s not like it means much if I had to throw a tantrum to get them!
But when viewed as the condescending act it is (which Dalrock hints at), the offense taken by a feminist is understandable, no? Women don’t like to be patronized any more than men do.
It’s not condescending in the way you’re thinking. If it’s done willingly rather than forced there is an affection in the gesture. It’s not patronising in the sense that a man thinks a woman can’t open a door herself, but just a kind gesture of “let me get that for you.” See the difference? Obviously if the woman is being a princess and expecting it because “do you know who I am?!” then the gesture loses all its meaning and affection.
All I see are women who are married or have boyfriend’s of all ages walking around short skirts and low cut tops fishing for attention. Basically giving away their sexuality to any man who cares to look their way.
Chivilary was a “gift” given to women by their husbands or boyfriends, in return these women deferred to their husband/boyfriend and saw to their comfort. The horse left the barn, the barn burnt down, they turned the burnt down barn into a hook up palor.
Yea, I’ll be chivilrous in hopes of garnishing an approving look.
I truly think society will be better off with more gender-neutral manners, and I am pretty sure women can cope with changing their own tires or calling triple-A, asking men out on dates and paying for them
Boy do I loathe the term “gender-neutral,” even putting aside my grammar nazi tendencies to point out that “gender” is a grammatical term and that the correct term is “sex.” Yes, let’s all neuter ourselves for the socialist utopia! Further on, I think a man changing a tire for me is hot. 😉 (Not that it’s ever come up, because I have never owned a car).
Y’all might enjoy blending this discussion with a recent thread at Athol Kay’s blog on the
obligations of a stay-at-home wife to cater to her husband, and the countervailing idea that it’s a “man’s job” to “support” his wife and not expect any comforts in return.
http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2011/01/dont-cater-endlessly-to-sahm.html
It means that emotional terrorism, and threats, do work – for those people who didn’t already know that.
Yep, fer shur, the first thing which would come to my mind if a woman offered to cook me a nice home cooked meal – “Hey, that bitch is telling me I can’t cook for myself. HOW DARE SHE?!??!!” (not!)
Not to worry, DH, there is at least one man in this world from whom you are absolutely safe from having to endure any overbearing act of kindness.
Those of you women who might not interpret acts of kindness to be insults… take it up with DH. I’ll play it safe and make sure I avoid insulting any woman who thinks like she does.
Let’s see… how did Dalrock put it? Oh yeah,
Well said, Dalrock.
Well, I’m old (or middle-aged at least) so over the years, I have had a lot of doors opened for me, and heavy bags put in overhead compartments, etc. I agree, Thag, that many men do not do these things in a spirit of condescension. I have experienced these things in a number of ways — sometimes the man is simply being kind, sometimes the man sees a need and wants to help, sometimes the man is automatically doing what he was raised to do, sometimes the man is flirting, sometimes the man is ostentatiously trying to garner attention, and sometimes the man is condescending. Like most social interactions, “chivalry” comes in all sorts of varieties of tone and intention. But I think the symbolism implied in chivalry is condescension.
Fun story: last year i was stuck by the side of the road for 3 hours while waiting for a AAA (for non-Americans that’s an organization that sends out roadside assistance). It seemed as though about 30 men stopped to offer to change my tire (one after another) and I kept saying, “No, thank you, AAA is on its way. I’m all set. Much obliged.” Obviously, the men were being very kind but I didn’t want to put them out just because I didn’t know how to change a tire. I was also horribly embarrassed that I couldn’t do it myself. Immediately after this incident, I hounded my father-in-law to teach me how to change a tire, but he refused on the ground that it is too dangerous. My husband couldn’t help because he was unwell, so I wound up buying a really good jack and paying someone to show me how to change a tire.
On the one hand, it is a little pathetic of me that I placed myself in a situation in which I might have had to rely on the good graces of strange men if I didn’t have AAA service. On the other hand, I am guessing that if I were a man, a father or uncle would have made sure when I was younger that I knew how to change a tire even without me taking the initiative, and I would not have encountered resistance when I did seek instruction.
THAG, men changing tires doesn’t get me going, but men chopping wood is nice!!! But that’s a sexual thing, not a chivalry thing! I don’t even need any wood chopped up!
“I am also intrigued by Dalrock’s notion that chivalry are a voluntary acts, by which a more powerful person chooses to help someone of lower stature. In other words, acts of chivalry (certainly in their ceremonial forms) are literally acts of condescension.”
I’m not intrigued, I think it’s very logical. Knights were the alpha dogs of their day, so by definition, a chivalrous act was one of condescension. That makes perfect sense – the idea is that a powerful person who eschews abusing his power is civilized. Very Arthurian.
“Unfortunately, it does seem a lot of women are that materialistic…it’s not like it means much if I had to throw a tantrum to get them!”
I think materialism is only part of the story. The rest of it is the social dynamics of a girl getting a guy to give his resources to her. She can rationalize that she has ‘value’ if a guy spends resources on her. Of course, then she rationalizes him as a doormat and finds a guy she can’t shit-test into compliance, and has sex with
The non-mutual expectations of Valentine’s Day are absolutely disgusting. Much of the holiday is what I wrote above – an opportunity for girls to show off to their friends how much more attention they get from their man.
Nice one, zed! And your prerogative is fine with me.
But you misunderstand me. One, I don’t think holding doors is meant to be any sort of statement about women’s physical ability to open a door. Everyone knows a woman can open a door. The key part of the interaction (and I go through it about 4-5 times a day where I work) is that the man stands aside to let the woman pass first. What is expressed is that the man will not abuse his greater social and physical power to push the woman aside even though he could. He will choose instead to honor her, a choice which was valued in times past because it is not a choice he HAS to make.
Second, as noted above, I don’t think individual men intend to be insulting necessarily (though sometimes an attachment to chivalry is connected to an underlying contempt for women). I am perfectly capable of not taking offense at well-intended gestures. But I am quite glad that certain manners (tipping the hat, standing up when a woman enters) have gone by the wayside, and I would be happier if the remaining vestiges of chivalry would go by the way side.
On the one hand, it is a little pathetic of me that I placed myself in a situation in which I might have had to rely on the good graces of strange men if I didn’t have AAA service.
Such circumstances are why I personally find the idea that feminism “empowers” women to be very problematic. Far too many self-identified feminists I have known do not have a single DIY repair book on their shelves alongside their feminist treatise and possess no idea how to perform such basic tasks as locating circuit breakers, changing a tire, or relighting a pilot light. All of these are the most basic of skills that everybody ought to know.
On the other hand, I am guessing that if I were a man, a father or uncle would have made sure when I was younger that I knew how to change a tire even without me taking the initiative, and I would not have encountered resistance when I did seek instruction.
Why blame the men in your life for you choosing not to acquire such a skill? This seems patently unfair and contrary to the feminist beliefs you are espousing on this thread and elsewhere on the web. It hints at a notion of victim-hood even. Many community colleges offer instruction in basic car repairs, plumbing, general home maintenance, and a myriad other basic life skills. Goodness, my conservative Christian father managed to teach me all of this and more and I then brushed up again as an adult. There is something very rewarding about being able to diagnose the dead battery in your car and change it yourself without needing to bother others to hold your hand through it.
How does such ineptitude and irresponsibility equal “empowerment”? I find this incredibly concerning about feminism and have marveled about this on my blog many times. When women are told they are victims of the Big Bad Patriarchy and incapable of helping themselves it does seem feminist beliefs wind up perpetrating a self-fulfilling prophecy that harms women. When they are focusing on philosophy and ideology as opposed to acquiring the skills and learning necessary to be “strong and independent” something is severely lacking in the education being offered to them.
Allow me to riff a bit more. I have a friend who is a grad student without a lot of money, his girl is a teacher in a tony school district – not living large but she’s doing better than him. But V-Day rolls around and he tells me “she’s demanding I get her flowers, AND a gift, AND dinner,” and she doesn’t appear to care that he’s the lower earner in the couple.
Now maybe she’s carrying him financially the rest of the year, but I would bet she’s more a Cosmo girl who if he balked at the demands would shame and threaten him and – here’s the key point – badmouth him to her friends in a feedback loop of relationship mistrust and destruction.
Guys need to quit tolerating this stuff.
Hestia,
Nope, I am not a victim, nor did “feminism” fail me in my lack of car expertise. I will cop to being inept — AND to taking to steps to remedy my failing, as my story demonstrates.
First, I never once in my story blamed men in my life for not showing me how to change a tire. It is not their fault, but I think that it just never crossed their mind to insist that I learn to change a tire in a way it would have if I were a dude. It isn’t an issue of fault so much as just cultural assumptions a lot of people make without even thinking much about it. (I will admit to having been aggravated with my father-in-law for refusing to teach me when I asked.) Obviously, there was nothing stopping ME from taking the initiative, which I eventually DID. But the point is that my husband, for example, didn’t HAVE take any initiative because it was a given that his father and other mentors would make sure he knew how to do this. I am not claiming this is the end of the world, just an example of how the sexes are often treated differently. In many families, it takes more initiative for a woman to learn to change a tire than for a man, so it is no surprise that more men know how to change tires (just as it is no surprise that more women know how to sew).
Second, I am fully aware that not knowing how to change a tire is RIDICULOUS. That was part of the point of my story. As I said, I was EMBARRASSED and I preferred to sit for 3 hours on the side of the road than inconvenience any of the men who stopped to help. It seems kind of silly, Hestia, to castigate me for something that I already admitted in my story was a failure on my part, i.e. something embarrassing. Also, I took RESPONSIBILITY and remedied the situation by paying someone to teach me to change a tire. So don’t try to shoe-horn me into your preconceived notions of feminist “victim-hood.” Your preconceived notions are wrong.
Third, feminist groups have been very good since at least the 70s at creating
classes for women to learn automotive basics. And I knew full-well for many years that it is something I ought to do. I just didn’t get around to it because I have been working a gazillion hours a week since I was 14. But it was precisely my feminist sensibility that caused me to (A) not want to inconvenience the men driving by, and (B) remedy my “ineptitude” ASAP after this unfortunate event.
Long story short — your comment misinterpreted the plain facts of my anecdote based on your assumptions about feminism.
And, yes, the whole charade around Valentine’s Day is gross and degrading to both men and women. (Of course, many couples manage to avoid the stereotype of man-lavishing-woman-with-competitive-gifts.) But the ads (especially for jewelry) are brutal.
I do think it becomes a competitive sport among men and women. Women (especially in communal settings like dorms) get competitive about who gets the best flowers and men compete over who can lavish the most on his girlfriend. It becomes a status symbol for both. Kind of like the engagement ring racket, which is even worse. Of course, when we feminists criticize this stuff, people call us mean and grinchy.
Homeschooler deleted my comments. Sad. I only said that ugly women should be mocked, and attractive ones whistled at.
You May as Well Ignore Me Because I’m a Slut and Proud of It said: “I hounded my father-in-law to teach me how to change a tire, but he refused on the ground that it is too dangerous. My husband couldn’t help because he was unwell, so I wound up buying a really good jack and paying someone to show me how to change a tire.”
Implausible. My father, one of the whitest of knights, forced my sisters to learn how to change tires in a fit of loving chivalry. What you describe bears little resemblance to how men, even manginas, actually behave.
Knowing what actually happened, and why you see fit to lie about it, would be interesting.
Zed: “Not to worry, DH, there is at least one man in this world from whom you are absolutely safe from having to endure any overbearing act of kindness.”
Can we get a show of hands?
First, I never once in my story blamed men in my life for not showing me how to change a tire
Why then did you mention the fact your uncle and father didn’t teach you because you are a woman?
Third, feminist groups have been very good since at least the 70s at creating
classes for women to learn automotive basics.
Is there anyway you might be able to provide a link to information about such a class?
I’m not seeking to castigate you but am seeking to make sense of some inconsistencies in your various comments and your ideological leanings in general. The reality of a woman who likely believes herself to be strong and independent yet never took the time time to empower herself with such important knowledge is more than a little baffling. I say this not out of malice but general concern for a woman shouldn’t be unsafe simply because she is a woman and should care about herself enough to make the time to keep herself and those she loves safe and secure. Certain religious groups and feminist ideology both seem to hold this belief in the way they handle such topics with kiddie gloves.
I fail to see how I am misrepresenting what you are saying or attempting to make you fit some preconceived notions I have. You reached middle age having never taken the initiative to take care of yourself when it comes to a situation that is incredibly common during a time when women were supposedly seeking to become equal with men. Being capable of shoveling the gravel and taking care of loved ones alongside men should have been held in high regard. Rather than be offended at somebody pointing out this truth, your story could serve as an excellent cautionary tale to young women to be sure they never get themselves into the same potentially dangerous situation. That is ultimately a positive thing.
Why am I wrong to form my opinion (or make “preconceived notions” as you say) based off my experience and research? Why is it unacceptable to criticize feminism and look critically at how the ideology may be failing young people when it comes to matters of safety, general life skills, and how this works into a world without chivalry? How does feminism fulfill the need for young women to be mature & capable adults who are just as knowledgeable and ready to handle life’s hiccups as plenty of men are? How does it prepare them, practically speaking, to be partners in the truest sense of the word should they find themselves in a long-term adult relationship someday?
IMHO feminism and many other ideologies are found wanting when it comes to preparing young people to be “real” adults who can attain success and a good life in the world we live in.
Dalrock,
I know I probably need to give it a little more time, but has anyone else noticed an absence of many of the usual suspects commenting on this thread?
I think it would be very interesting if you would revisit the topic of post-marital spinsterhood. Perhaps there is a fairly large group of women for whom that is not a “bug” of the current operating system, but a feature. There is a fairly large age range represented in your audience, and I speculate that marriage and mating are of much more concern to those under about age 45 than to those older. I get the distinct impression from commenters like DH and BLW that they are quite satisfied with fish and bicycles just drifting off from each other into their separate worlds.
Seriously, if a significant portion of women find men’s interest and kindness that unpleasant, offensive, and insulting, there is no one’s interest being served by continuing to shove men and women at each other past a certain age.
Maybe post-marital spinsterhood is for women like the brier patch was for Br’er Rabbit – where they live, and where they want to live, and not any sort of worrisome specter at all.
If that is true, isn’t it time we all just accepted that and got on with our lives?
Funny how that offense at condescension rarely seems to extend to handouts from the gov’t or other organizations: e.g., special bennies for women-owned businesses, explicit or implicit quotas, disproportionate funding for research into women’s health, special organizations devoted to women’s interests/advancement, etc.
Pulling out a chair: Intolerable condescension. Preferences in gov’t contracting? It’s all good! As far as I can tell, feminists don’t mind being patronized at all, so long as there’s a dollar at the end of it.
Fair enough, Hestia. And thank you for your interest! Yes, I have defined myself as a feminist ever since I can remember. And, yes, seeking to avoid the damsel in distress routine is an important part of my feminist belief system.
Have I always believed that women should know basic automotive repair? Yes! Why didn’t I take the initiative to seek out a class or an instructor earlier? I have always been freakin’ busy, that’s why! (Busy at what? Serving my clients and earning a living in a demanding profession, and being an equal partner in managing my household. Before that, undergoing rigorous academic demands to qualify for said demanding profession.)
Does my automotive failure make me a Bad Feminist? When I was younger, I might have said yes. I used to think that being a feminist meant I had to be super-competent in every area of life. But you know what? There are some nebbishy men in my law firm who probably can’t (or wouldn’t) change a tire either. So I don’t mind owning up to the fact that I had an area of ineptitude in my life. Hell, I don’t even mind owning up to it on an anti-feminist blog where I know I will likely receive critical and unfriendly responses. I am human, so sue me. The point is that, as a feminist, I did not take it as my due that any passing man should stop and dirty himself to change my tire for me; I was embarrassed and insisted on waiting for AAA. The other point is that I did ultimately take responsibility to remedy the area in which I was inept. And, yes, another point is that there are families and communities in which women learning how to change tires is not something that happens automatically – not because men are “bad” or “at fault” in some way, but because that is a facet of our culture that crops up in more places than you might think.
Further to the matter of tire-changing:
Did I miss the moment in our culture when changing a tire became a feat equivalent to capping the Deepwater Horizon gusher? Contrary to what DH seems to assume, the Mysteries of the Lug Wrench aren’t passed from Father to Son in some sort of solemn, work-light illuminated ceremony held after hours in the the parts dept. of the local Kragen.
The first time I had a flat, I hadn’t been “shown” how to change a tire. (I think I might have seen one changed once.) You know what I did? I fished out the little card packed with the spare tire and jack and figured it the f— out. Damn, woman.
I think it’s really off to expect strangers of any sex to come to one’s aid. Friends and family, yes. Strangers, no. Especially in a society that has shucked off common beliefs, expectations, and morality, it reeks of entitlement.
I actually like to learn how things work and how to repair them. It makes me feel less dependent. There may come a day when I don’t have people around who would and will help. Although, with my car, I’m not sure I could change the tire. I learned how to do it in driver’s training, and I have a jack in the trunk. But I’m not sure I could get the lug nuts off. So I have roadside assist and a charged pay-as-you-go cellphone.
I will say this: the men in my life have been generous with their help and genuinely kind to me. I’ve tried to give back in turn, but I have never gotten the feeling from them that a tally is being carefully kept.
I genuinely don’t understand the kind of woman who harrumphs at a man who opens a door for her. I saw this in college for the first time and was appalled at the bitchiness of it. But then my first thought during any interaction is not how someone is trying to insult, offend, impugn, or condescend to me.
Hestia, Didn’t meant to ignore your question about women’s automotive courses. I am not going to do an internet research project. I was basing my statement on what I thought was common knowledge. I think Family Ties even had a skit about the mother character taking a women’s automotive class! Through my life, I have often become aware of various groups getting together to rectify perceived gaps in women’s training — like groups for women in outdoor hunting, fishing and camping skills, groups designed to teach professional women golf so they can attend marketing events with clients geared towards golf, and courses for women to learn automotive care and household repairs. There is no feminist monolith in charge of these things, but there are certainly groups that have taken these on.
Zed said:
Seriously, if a significant portion of women find men’s interest and kindness that unpleasant, offensive, and insulting, there is no one’s interest being served by continuing to shove men and women at each other past a certain age.
But chivalry isn’t the same thing as “interest and kindness.” No one objected to men’s interest and kindness! But, as Dalrock pointed out, chivalry is an elaborate code of sex-based behaviors. Men can be kind without necessarily adhering to arbitrary rules like, “Always step aside for a woman,” or “Let the women get off the sinking ship first.” It is really not that hard.
I think Family Ties even had a skit about the mother character taking a women’s automotive class!
I likely didn’t exist when that skit was on TV. According to Wiki my parents weren’t even married when the show debuted. 😉
I googled around for classes tonight and/or feminist blogs addressing them and only came off with gripes about mechanics trying to take advantage of women for being women and the like. I’m aware of many non-feminist organizations that offer a variety of co-ed classes (in fact, I’ve helped organize several auto & home repair classes for families in our FRG with the help of various Army and civilian organizations as well as personal safety talks given by experts in the field) but have never come across women’s only courses as you have mentioned, with the exception of shooting classes offered through the women’s division of the NRA. It was through them I located my first concealed carry class.
Lighter sentences and DV excuses for women are a frequent topic of agitation in the Manosphere. Didn’t happen this time:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/04/BATF1H42V1.DTL
A Healdsburg woman was sentenced Tuesday to 26 years to life in prison for killing her boyfriend because he was too drunk to attend a Christmas party.
Sheyna Douprea, 25, stabbed 46-year-old Daniel Gerard Mooney numerous times in the neck Dec. 14, 2008, at his Mason Street apartment in Healdsburg. Investigators said she had been enraged that Mooney was in no condition to go to his employer’s Christmas party with her.
Douprea’s attorney argued that Mooney had battered her and that she had been trying to defend herself.
Witnesses testified that Douprea had a history of violent, unpredictable behavior, including gouging people with her fingernails and assaulting her mother’s boyfriend with a kitchen knife.
A Sonoma County jury convicted her of first-degree murder in August.
Somebody commented thusly on the story:
women do this because they think that there is nothing wrong with hitting, beating, assaulting, battering and, throwing crap at men.
Guess what ladies it is just as bad as a man doing the same to a lady.
Domestic violence is not always the man hitting the women and is often instigated by females.
Another problem with “chivalric” ideas that men are supposed to take blows on behalf of women is that they creep into the idea that men are supposed to take blows FROM women.
Addendum:
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081231/NEWS/812310321
The judge refused to set bail at the arraignment, and the story notes the killer had two previous domestic violence convictions and she had failed to complete a court-ordered “class” on DV.
Well, maybe women’s automotive classes are a creature of the past. I do sort of associate them with the 70s, looong before you were born and when I was just a wee harlot myself. There also may be less of a perceived need for “special women” classes because times have changed dramatically. A woman like my mother might feel self-conscious learning automotive stuff (or any subject once considered “guy stuff”) in a mixed group; my niece would jump right in.
Taking a firearms class is on my “to do” list — as in, I really want to do it but don’t know when to fit it in.
Interesting story, Badger. Misguided chivalry has surely been to blame for disparate sentencing of female offenders. So often manoshere bloggers and commenters blame “feminism” for this phenomenon — but the male judges are still in a significant majority pretty much everywhere in the country. And 100 years ago, women couldn’t even prosecuted for statutory rape. Such a crime (known as “seduction”) was considered to be something that only men could do to girls. Feminist changes in society have led to the recognition that women who seduce young boys should be held equally accountable for their actions as men who seduce young girls.
P.S. This Dumb Harlot, i.e. me, your humble feminist correspondent, has put a number of female DV offenders behind bars in a prior job as an assistant D.A. Yes, I am proud of my work and yes, I am showing off. But I don’t think female-on-male DV should be taken lightly (or any DV) and I do enjoy the irony that the feminist commenter on this thread is actually also the person on this thread who has actually prosecuted female DV offenders. *OK, up too late, I’ll shut up, off to sleep*
I think it’s just as likely that automotive education has declined in general over the past 30 years as that DH is mistaken about the classes in the first place. Two reasons: 1. social support for tradecraft has fallen in the US. 2. Cars are not user-serviceable these days like they were in the carburetor era. About all you can do is check your oil and change the tires, the rest has to be done by very skilled technology workers who have access to the car’s internal computer and understand the finer points of advanced suspensions, fuel injection systems, etc.
“P.S. This Dumb Harlot, i.e. me, your humble feminist correspondent, has put a number of female DV offenders behind bars in a prior job as an assistant D.A. Yes, I am proud of my work and yes, I am showing off. But I don’t think female-on-male DV should be taken lightly (or any DV) and I do enjoy the irony that the feminist commenter on this thread is actually also the person on this thread who has actually prosecuted female DV offenders”
I think that it’s called ” putting your money where your mouth is”
Kudos to you for putting those female ofenders of DV behind bars where they belong.
I appreciate your honesty DH.
I will be changing the oil in our Suburban this weekend for the first time, under my husband’s tutelage. I’m kind of excited about it even though I’ve never een interested in doing it before. In fact, if he hadn’t injured his wrist recently, he’d be doing it.
As for the inability to repair your car yourself anymore, that’s maybe true but my husband does most of the repairs (major and minor) on our truck. Of coure, it’s a 2001, which is old by the standards of most people. When we get something newer, that may change.
I agree with Hestia that is strange that more women aren’t adept at doing basic car maintenance in the age of feminism. I was raised by a dad for whom the idea of a woman changing her tire was farfetched. My husband taught me that too though I admit I’d avoid jacking up my monstrous car if I could find someone else to do it.
I’m just sayin’.
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I agree with Hestia that is strange that more women aren’t adept at doing basic car maintenance in the age of feminism.
Taking the long view, feminism (at least the sense of broad-scale changes in attitudes across virtually all sectors of society) is fairly new. Western society has changed dramatically in this regard within the last 30-50 years, and even just the last 30 years. So I don’t expect changes in roles and skills to be uniform and consistent across the board. For example, when I was a Girl Scout in the 70s, everyone agreed that girls should be taken camping and taught outdoor skills; but the women in charge of my Girl Scout didn’t have the skills or confidence to take us because they had been brought up in another era. So, despite changes in attitudes between the 50s and 70s, a lot of women my aged (39) or even younger may have in reality had quite different experiences growing up than our male counterparts. Feminist change doesn’t just happen overnight and I expect the pace of change to be uneven. Also, things happened differently in different places; my sister-in-law (older than I) had opportunities to play soccer and baseball; I didn’t get a chance to do team sports until we moved to a different community when I was 10 and by then I was fairly hopeless (though I am physically very fit, just not good at team sports).
The person who changes my oil at Jiffy Lube is a woman though! That wouldn’t have happened 40 years ago.
@Badger Nation- You raise a fair point. A lot of what can be done seems to depend on the particular make of car too. Either myself or my husband (sometimes with the help of his friends) has been able to do a variety of repairs on our Equinox and have yet to take the car into the shop. I recently replaced the break pads myself and my husband will be doing a repair on the wheel bearings soon. The battery was easy to replace this fall when I had to do that too. My parents had a Kia that was awful even when it came to replacing the battery. The battery was in a weird location and took ages to pry out. When my dad and I did this repair on the Kia, it took at least three hours. The Equinox took less than half an hour, alone and with a small child to look after while I was working. Night and day difference between working on those two vehicles!
To be fair, my husband is extremely mechanically inclined and his “can do” spirit has rubbed off on me as well. Nearly every electronic item in our house has been opened and fiddled with at some point and we tend to buy items (including cars) that we know we can fix ourselves. Together we’ve even restored and repaired a 1915 Baldwin piano that we found at a thrift store for a mere $40. You’d never know the instrument was in such disrepair when we found it. My husband is truly brilliant when it comes to fixing anything and this probably makes my opinion about DIY more than a little biased. 😉
[D: I love it!]
Basic car maintenance really hasn’t changed much at all, nor has which gender does it (either paid or for the household). There is a reason Doomed Harlot still fondly remembers TV shows from the early 80s when the question comes up, and that is because her example of a woman working in the pit at her local grease monkey is part of the few percent exception and not the rule. What percent of the women reading this blog have checked their own tire pressure in the last year? What percent have added air to their own tires in the last three years (not including learning exercises)? Same for wiper blades. It doesn’t count if the guy at the parts store did it for you, either. 🙂 What Doomed Harlot and her sitcom writing friends didn’t consider is sure women could do most if not all of the stuff men do, but most of them don’t want to. I think it is fantastic that Terry is going to change her own oil soon. The suburban is a good choice since it probably has enough clearance that she won’t have to fuss with ramps. It will be a great experience, but I’m guessing she won’t miss crawling under the truck and getting hot dirty motor oil on her hands and under her nails. What’s that new scent I’m wearing? Why it’s Valvoline, with a hint of viscosity breakdown! 🙂 And Terry will do a great job, I’m sure of it. She won’t even make the boneheaded mistake I made the other week of starting to pour new oil in before replacing the drain plug (first time in 20 years…).
To the extent that the basic tasks have changed, they are probably easier now. Changing wiper blades as I recall used to be harder, but now you just swap the module and throw the old part away. But changing oil, tires, checking tire pressure, changing spark plugs/wires/rotor is all the same (although each year there seems to be less room under the hood to work…).
Badger mentioned carburetors, but for someone coming in not knowing either tech I would say fuel injection is easer to work with from a basic point of view. Same with the move from points to electronic ignition. Less for someone like me to hassle with. Even the dreaded computers are easier for someone new coming in than the old ways. This is the tech we live with after all. My father had a mechanic’s bay in his service station back in the 70s. I remember they had a massive scope that they used to diagnose what was actually happening as the engine ran. I’m pretty sure if the average shade tree mechanic wanted to they could get better info from a handheld device they bought at the parts store or online. On our old saturn I was able to get it to flash out the problem codes via the check engine light using a bent paper clip (instructions and meaning of the codes were in the Haynes manual…). Don’t have a chilton or haynes manual? You can probably get the same information my father had in literally yards of manuals faster via google. For example I was able to reprogram a 2000 model saturn to accept a new key remote with the physical key and something similar to the paperclip trick (googled the question and found a forum where someone had already answered the question).
Hold on a sec. I’ve been unfairly maligned! I never said that I look back on 80s sitcoms “fondly.” I just happened to remember a particular episode. For the love of God, please don’t lump me in with sit-com writers, of all people. The general picture they paint of the various attributes of men versus women and their relations to each other is dreadful.
As to whether men are more interested in cars, well, sure. (The degree to which this interest in intrinsic versus a product of culture is open to question. I suspect the answer is a bit of both, but I neither know nor care.) My basic view though is that kids should be raised to know all the basic skills of life from changing a tire to making a basic meal, without regard to sex . I doubt that is a controversial statement even here.
[D: It isn’t controversial to me. I wrote much the same here. But it isn’t what is actually happening. Not by a long shot.]
@Hestia
I googled around for classes tonight and/or feminist blogs addressing them and only came off with gripes about mechanics trying to take advantage of women for being women and the like.
Feminists had a long list titled “Stuff men do which women don’t”. Over the course of decades they went through and checked each item off, but this just meant showing that one or some women could do it. Once they checked the item off they generally lost interest in it. There might have been automotive classes for women when this was part of the then current five year plan, but I’m not surprised you can’t find one now. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t just have the writers of the sitcom declare it done so they could check it off, and no classes were ever available.
Taking the long view, feminism (at least the sense of broad-scale changes in attitudes across virtually all sectors of society) is fairly new. Western society has changed dramatically in this regard within the last 30-50 years, and even just the last 30 years. So I don’t expect changes in roles and skills to be uniform and consistent across the board. For example, when I was a Girl Scout in the 70s, everyone agreed that girls should be taken camping and taught outdoor skills; but the women in charge of my Girl Scout didn’t have the skills or confidence to take us because they had been brought up in another era. So, despite changes in attitudes between the 50s and 70s, a lot of women my aged (39) or even younger may have in reality had quite different experiences growing up than our male counterparts.
From my wife’s experience teaching middle school and high school boys and girls, and from our observation of our 5 year old’s peers, I would say that girls are if anything even more ‘girly’ than they were 30 or 40 years ago. They just cover any lack of actual skills and experience up with moxy, like feminists taught them.
“I would say that girls are if anything even more ‘girly’ than they were 30 or 40 years ago.”
Yes, this is a bizarre paradox. The best example I see is that while women have more opportunity to earn their own keep than ever, more and more women want to insist guys pay for stuff, treat them as princesses, etc. It’s the sense of entitlement and its pernicious twin, learned helplessness. I’m preparing a post on this paradox and also on the extreme (apparent) lack of agency in modern young women.
@Doomed Harlot
Fun story: last year i was stuck by the side of the road for 3 hours while waiting for a AAA (for non-Americans that’s an organization that sends out roadside assistance). It seemed as though about 30 men stopped to offer to change my tire (one after another) and I kept saying, “No, thank you, AAA is on its way.
How sexist of you. You didn’t mention how many women stopped and offered to help! 🙂
I’m glad to hear you bought a good jack (and know how to use it now). Even so, never trust even a good jack. Always assume the car could fall off at any moment, and keep yourself free in case it were to fall (wisdom from my mechanic father). Now that you own a good jack and know how to fix your flat though your chances of ever having another blowout have gone down dramatically. I’m not sure why, but things just work that way.
“They just cover any lack of actual skills and experience up with moxy, like feminists taught them.”
To be fair to feminists, overconfidence in the face of lack of real skills is endemic in both genders so far as I can tell.
I think both sides have been encouraged to (or left to) celebrate themselves as they are and not think self-worth and self-esteem comes from actual accomplishment. I also think we’ve pumped a “if you ain’t number one you ain’t nothing” attitude in this country, so kids who know they won’t make it to the top simply check out from competing.
“Why do we not see more gentlemen? Because men in general of zero character at best, and at worst are in the negatives (as in they suck what little character others have right out of them).”
This guy is a real self-hating idiot (aside from missing a verb in his sentence). It doesn’t have to do with “character,” it’s that men are not rewarded with romance or even appreciation for being “gentlemen.” You may be right that he’s insulated in his socon world and doesn’t understand what things are like in the real world but how clueless do you get to be? Go to ANY MRA/game site and read dozens upon dozens upon dozens of comments from guys saying “I used to be a lonely gentlemen, now I’m a well-serviced asshole and I’m not going back.”
Question for the gallery: when did American Christianity embrace this Victorian “man corrupt, woman civilizing” gender model?
“white knight boot licker brigade”
That is a Roissy-esque level of creative neologism.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dalrock! I am have complete confidence in my husband’s ability to make sure I get it right.
@Hestia: Your husband sounds a lot like mine when it comes to DIY. I am a lot more handy now than I was before I married him and I tackle things I never thought I could’ve but I don’t have a passion for Do-it-yourself. Our house is almost recognizeable from when we bought it 9 years ago and we’ve done most of the work ourselves. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel after we finish a big job around the house. Funny story:
I had the chance to meet up with a blogging friend when her family was in FL over the holidays. She called me recently and said my husband has created a monster because now her husband, who has never been all that handy, wants to buy a router, a mitre saw, table saw, and some of every other kind of tool that my husband has out in our garage. He has a bunch of projects he wants to tackle. I think its great, she’s a little wary.
The opposite of order is anarchy. The question is, can you have order without hierarchy? The answer is a conditional yes, it’s possible, but only in homogenous populations with little inequality.
She called me recently and said my husband has created a monster because now her husband, who has never been all that handy, wants to buy a router, a mitre saw, table saw, and some of every other kind of tool that my husband has out in our garage. He has a bunch of projects he wants to tackle. I think its great, she’s a little wary.
HAHA! That is great! We have several power tools headed our way as my belated birthday gifts so that we can venture into more toy making (CPSIA is taking effect in five weeks now that the second stay is ending)…..or so that my husband can practice his new trauma treatment and limb reattachment skills in our garage. Depends on who you talk to. *smirks*
My parents gave our little one a train table set sans the table for Christmas and we just built the best train/coffee table for her using all hand tools. (Tutorial here for this simple, inexpensive, and great table: http://ana-white.com/2010/12/moms-train-table.html) Show your friend that website and her reluctance should vanish!
I should go email you before I take over Dalrock’s block with power tool ramblings!
Though on a similar note, Terry & Dalrock & other parents reading, Home Depot and Lowes both offer excellent children’s clinics on a set Saturday morning or two every month. The clinics are free and teach children a variety of construction and math skills all while they make a little toy to take home. Most of the projects are recommended for ages six and up but our four year old has no problems making these projects. She is very excited to be going to Lowe’s this weekend to make a little ball toss game.
Lowes also carries the project kits and a brand of kid sized tools called “Real Tools” that are, indeed, real tools. We picked up a set of the tools for the learning room this fall and enjoyed making a variety of projects with them. A plant box is next on our kiddie woodworking list.
/thread hijack
My comment on the mangina kid blog:
I was reading the Bible 50 years before you were born, young man.
I have been hearing about this page on men’s forums. And, would like to congratulate you on your hard work and dedication. Satan is working hard to destroy men in the US, and you are helping him. Please carry on. I am sure on Judgment Day you will receive your just dues.
terry@breathinggrace:
Heh heh, Almost two years ago now, I decided to renovate our nasty ole basement myself, and turn it into a Japanese room (for my Japanese wife) and a movie projector gaming room (for me) all rolled into one. I had no real experience with the framing, drywalling, electrical work, flooring, carpeting, etc I was signing myself up for.
If you’ve ever had a husband get bit by the DIY bug, you know how it goes. It started out with me saying that I needed a tablesaw to help with the framing, and that I probably wouldn’t need that much more in the way of tools. One year, a tablesaw, a jigsaw, a mitre saw, a router, a router table, multiple nail and staple guns, and air pressurizer, Pergo tools, electrical tools, drywall tools, painting tools, staining tools, and carpeting tools later, I was done.
It was a harrowing experience of steep learning curves and gingerly stringing my wife along with half-truths about costs, time-to-finish, and selling my tools on Craiglist when I was done (I wasn’t lying, I just neglected to mention that she’d have to kill me and pry them out of my cold, dead hands first), but I would say it was well worth it, most especially when I’m playing XBox on a 100-inch screen.
@ The Deuce:
I wasn’t lying, I just neglected to mention that she’d have to kill me and pry them out of my cold, dead hands first.
Very funny!
My husband bought many of his tools off Craiglist. People tend to be much more willing to bargain at certain times of the year. We’ve gotten some real steals right after Christmas and right before school starts. One man’s famine is another man’s feast, I guess. I think he has all the tools he needs for now. I’m pretty sure he has just about everything you listed above.
The learning curves have been very steep on some projects but as you well know, there’s nothing quite like seeing a job well done and knowing you did it.
Btw, I can’t help but notice that our homeschooled friend’s entry shows zero comments. He appears to be well-trained in the “deleting arguments that challenge your assumptions makes them go away” school of debate.
Indeed, Deuce, only my comment which pointed here, hoping to at least bring him here to defend his position, has been posted. Spineless, gutless wonder. And he calls those who disagree with him, deficient in their masculinity; amazing, eh?
Look again, Will!
See how long my comment lasts.
I wrote:
Dude, if you’re going to delete every comment that disagrees with you, why have the commenting on at all? Part of your education ought to be debating skills – this would be good practise. You never know, you might learn a thing or two.
Left this:
“I can’t help but notice that you’ve deleted every comment questioning your assumptions, rather than rising to the challenge of defending against contrary opinions, or even just leaving them for others to see and make up their own minds. How very brave. Truly you are over-qualified to lecture the world about manhood.”
It’s now 7:59 PM. Let’s see how long it takes to disappear. We’ll call it the Countdown To Cowardice.
Hmm, I see that if I open in another browser, my comment doesn’t come up, so it would appear it hasn’t made it through moderation. I suppose there’s some possibility (though a slight one) that our comments are just in limbo and that he hasn’t seen them, rather than that he’s deliberately deleting them.
Hmmm, maybe that’s it, Deuce; I just purged my cookies and my browser, and when I refreshed his page, nothing!
Yeah when I open it in Safari, no comment, in Firefox it’s still there. lol That would be funny if he just hasn’t seen it and then there are a bunch of comments accusing him of being a chicken shit seemingly out of nowhere! Woops! But I thought everyone spent all day at the computer!
He might never notice. The entry is back from March.
That, and the “latest” entry is from September… so maybe the entire thing has been abandoned
Well, looks like there are four posts up now.
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Harlot,
“Misguided chivalry has surely been to blame for disparate sentencing of female offenders. So often manoshere bloggers and commenters blame “feminism” for this phenomenon — but the male judges are still in a significant majority pretty much everywhere in the country.”
MRAs who study this stuff know that men are getting the hose from both sides – feminists who insist on female superiority, like that British judge who explicitly said women shouldn’t be held to the same sentences as men, and from whiteknighting bootlicker brigade judges who want to stick it to a weaker man in front of his bench. To whatever degree your branch of “feminism” has encouraged equal legal treatment between the genders I applaud your efforts.
“Feminist changes in society have led to the recognition that women who seduce young boys should be held equally accountable for their actions as men who seduce young girls.”
I don’t have the statistical abstracts in front of me, but every time I see one of these female teacher seduces a teenage boy stories in the news, the woman either gets probation or is not under consideration for anywhere near the sentence a man would get for having sex with an underage girl. Grerp recently wrote about a man who was facing 15 years in prison for a relationship with a teenager (I believe the case ended in a murder-suicide).
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Hey Dalrock,
Not only did I change the oil (I never imagined it could be so simple), but I changed the back brakes on the right side after watching my husband do the other side. To say I felt accomplished was an understatement! I didn’t even mind the dirt under my nails that far too long to get clean.
My dad never saw the need for a girl knowing how to do any of that stuff, and he usually just paid someone to do it on our family vehicles. I have a totally differnet attitude now. I think women should learn to do the basics like changing a tire and even changing the oil if necessary.
That is really cool Terry! I was hoping you would give us an update. You said you did the back brakes, so I’m guessing they were drum. I haven’t done brakes for a long time but from what I recall the drums are the harder of the two (drum vs disc). Nice work.
Modern Feminism, and the warping of society it causes, are entirely due to our modern technology, with technology taking the place of brute strength. Take away electricity, modern medicine, the IC engine, and all the other toys of modern life, and Feminism goes away, and quickly.
Ironic then, that all the -isms of the Left, including Feminism, have been trying for years to tear down the civilization that provides those technologies, and keeps them in the elevated state which they have become accostumed…
It was the brake pads actually, so I’m not sure if that qualifies as “changing the brakes” but it was involved enough for a novice like me that I felt good about being able to get it done.
I didn’t read but about a quarter of the way through the comments, so perhaps I am being redundant.
Under Chivalry, women had a *different* set of proscribed virtues. They have been so thoroughly excoriated from our society that they are no longer even remembered to have existed. ‘Cooking’ wasn’t amongst them, but ‘poise’ was.
‘Poise’.
American feminists can’t conceive it. When brought to their attention, they can’t abide it. It is now a vice. That’s just one of the virtues. The rest were no easier.
To a Lady, a Gentleman *owes* honor, and Chivalry in reply. They are both pledged to an ideal above their own self interests. But when honor is not offered, Honor is not owed. To but women, Gentlemen do not owe honor, nor Chivalry. It is, at best, a favor or gift but usually only a matter of a Gentleman exercising his integrity to maintain his strength of it.
I have met no Ladies born later than my mother in the early 30s. If I should ever meet a Lady, I’ll serve her gladly. I don’t owe women anything.
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NIce job.
Nowadays chivalry lost it’s sense, while we all social equally and everyone have it’s own pocket money.
Show for a women with pocket – funy stuff, and you can easilly turn that topic upside down by “food in a fridge – eat as much as you want” ))) Feminists gonna like it too )
That’s a chivalry )) maximum enclosed to food donation and feeding the poor or even woman ) And not so much neighbors will ask you the same )
Thx for nice text )
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