Chivalry Is Not Dead! |
| Posted by The Masked Crusader (cschalk) on Jan 10 2011 |
| The Masked Blog >> Opinionated Me |
Little bothers me more than disrespect, and I was in a particularly respectful mood this morning because, frankly, it was cold. I ride public transportation into work every morning and I usually have a lot of people at the bus stop who do the same. We all patiently sit back and wait for the bus to arrive and then, as common courtesy dictates, the men stand back and allow the women to board the bus first. It's not a sexist thing, but chivalry is not dead. The ladies should be allowed first choice at seats on the bus and, if needs be, the men should be the ones standing. And, on my 45 minute ride to work, it has happened more than once. Luckily, each time we've had people standing, it's always been dudes; the ladies all had their own seats.
Getting back on subject, this morning there was a man (not referring to him as a gentleman for reasons that will become obvious in a moment). He patiently waited back from the curb for the bus to come to a complete stop. Then, when the doors opened, he didn't merely stand idly by and allow the ladies to enter the bus first, but rather, with spiteful indignation in his eyes, barged through the crowd of women so he could get a seat on the bus. To be fair, he may have been really cold, but still, dude - be courteous.
I think this got under my skin more today because of an issue I witnessed at the church the other day. Our youth group was assigned to clean the building, so we had a bunch of young ladies and young men show up at 7am to clean. The job took about 2 hours, and everyone participated very well. At the end the youth were treated to doughnuts. Now, courtesy still dictates that the young ladies should be served first, and then the young men should second. There were plenty of doughnuts.
Let me back up a moment. The young women showed up at 7 am and volunteered to clean for the first hour, and the young men were assigned to relieve the girls after an hour. One young man (I'm not going to name names to protect the inconsiderate) showed up at about 7:30 with his sister and participated in cleaning. That was considerate of him. Well, when the doughnuts were served, the leader in charge specifically mentioned that the young women should go first (duh), but this one young man said "I was here with the girls, so I should go first too." and he did. He barged in front of several other young women who showed up before he did and narfed his doughnuts.
Were the ladies in these two accounts noticeably hurt? No. But it's the principle of the matter. Chivalry is not dead, and we, as a human race, must respect the women in our lives. That's all I have to say about that.
Last changed: Jan 10 2011 at 12:48 PM
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