Monday, January 7, 2008

Do men need to be chivalrous.??

Don't you think that the world can do without chivalry in the 21st century.? I mean its been decades that women have been talking about equality and doing great things in all walks of life. Last I heard, equality was a thing of the past and i think i overheard this, "women who aspire to be be equal to men just aren't ambitious enough." or something to that effect. So now that female equality has clearly been established, I'm made to wonder why they should expect chivalry. After all, isn't asking and hoping for chivalry from men tantamount to saying,"I could need some help here." You know even that's fine with me-some work just cant be done alone-but in that case why is help solicited only from men and not from women. If women can do everything men can,then why cant they be chivalrous ??

Lets go back in time and see why chivalry was required. Mankind lived in caves, man was the provider,women stayed back in the caves-cooking and taking care of the kids.If the cave-woman needed a large boulder to be broken or moved or a bear to be killed then she'd need the cave-man. That's it-that's where chivalry came from.Right.?? Now we can fast forward to the 19th century. Men were becoming doctors and discovering things and studying while most women stayed indoors n brought up the kids. Women wore dresses and obviously had mobility issues. So when they wanted to mount a horse or get onto the carriage or even walk a bumpy road,a little help could be used-enter the chivalrous 19th century man.

But why all this now.? The fairer sex don't need men by their side anymore-not for support at least. To get answers I asked a friend of mine who was sad that it was getting more and more difficult to find chivalrous men.Apparently, its nice if men are there to keep open the door when they want to enter (say a car) and to offer to hold their hand when they are walking on a bumpy road.! Whoa...!! I am reminded of Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. He's blind and is so accompanied by this young man.The fellow holds Pacino's hand when he's about to start walking.Pacino curtly yet strongly says,"Are you blind ?...Then why are you holding my hand ?" See the analogy girls.? So don't really hope for chivalry-detest it...unless of course you're afraid opening the car door will chip your nail polish.

The world doesn't really need a man who's nice to a woman because she's a woman-that's not chivalry-that's lame. We need people(both men and women) who are nice to other people(both men and women) because thats who they are, that's what they do.
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