I won't spend too much time elaborating on how much the last two weeks of my semester sucked; suffice to say that they were most definitely the hardest weeks of my college experience thus far. In a matter of 8 days, I wrote 5 papers, prepared a 10-minute presentation for my HON 102 class, and took 3 of my hardest finals (two of which were essays that combined easily to about 10 pages of my microscopic writing). I was very angry; I definitely had a minor mental breakdown a little more than halfway through the week after I'd slept an entire four hours in the matter of two and a half days. Oh well. All that is behind me now, and summer is finally here! It seems as if my hard work paid off, as I think I'll end up with 4 A's and 2 B's. As far ever taking another 18-credit-hour semester, I'll never do that again unless it's absolutely necessary! That shit was terrible.A very random topic happened to come up in my HON 102 (Gender and Witchcraft in the Medieval World) class discussion a few weeks ago which I think would be pretty appropriate for this blog post. I don't think it will bore people to death, simply because it has a lot of modern applicability. Basically, we were discussing chivalry in the Middle Ages, and Dr. Holliday asked the gentlemen in our class if they felt pressure to live up to the standards of chivalry in their treatment of women. One of my male classmates blurted out something along the lines of "Hell no, I think women should open their own doors," and that comment of course produced a lot of feedback from other students. My Honors class was composed of markedly different personalities; the individual statements made by my peers in response tended to be either really subdued or pretty extremist.
On this particular issue of male chivalry, I found myself somewhere in the middle ground. No, I don't think my boyfriend needs to be at my beck and call at all hours of the day. I also certainly don't expect other men to treat me this way. However, I'll admit that I do really appreciate it when a guy holds the door open for me or does something "gentlemanly." I perceive it as an indication that a guy knows what common courtesy is, and I like that in a man. If my boyfriend were consistently doing courteous things for me, I would take it as a sign of his respect for me; I would also do similar things for him, as I'm just as capable of returning those favors.
What I didn't fully agree with as far as this particular issue was the perception that chivalry has an inherently female-degrading element in its practice, which is what some of my female classmates suggested. Their rationale was that if a man goes far out of his way to do something "chivalrous" for a woman then he obviously thinks that women need to be treated specially on account of their inability to do things on their own.
What's interesting is that I honestly don't ever think about our society as a whole being sexist or misogynist until I'm exposed to hardcore feminist viewpoints. Perhaps that's partly due to the fact that I was raised in a household with two older brothers and was never given "special" treatment on account of being a girl. Alternatively, maybe it's simply that I'm blind to the disparities between men and women in American society. Regardless, I never felt less capable than men. However, when exposed to feminist writings or feminists themselves, I'm much more aware of the perceived imbalance between the genders. To be honest, I feel like feminism is much more of a defense mechanism than a progressive means of correcting any imbalances that might exist. Women aren't ignorant. Women don't make sandwiches all day long. Women aren't all housewives: these are facts that are quite obvious to me and many others. However, it seems as if feminism chooses to focus more on the sad state of women's affairs than on supporting and motivating women to rid themselves of the negative stereotypes associated with them. If women are constantly the victim in this philosophy, how is it going to really help them shed a perceieved inequality?
Even the very positive light that feminism often puts women under can, in my opinion, have inadvertent negative effects. If followers of this philosophy aggressively try to reinforce positive ideas about women, will this not simply draw attention back to the very stereotyes they are trying to banish? It seems somewhat desperate to me. Extreme example: if an uber-feminist becomes angry at a guy for going out of his way to open a door for her and gets to show her "womanly power" by rejecting his effort to be courteous, is this same guy not going to be just really confused and perhaps a little annoyed? Either that or the dude may just think the woman is incredibly rude. Either way, I don't think it's helping the case for the equality of women.
I think some perceptions needs to change. Ladies, if a guy opens the door for you, don't get offended; it's more than likely just a simple gesture of courtesy. Don't assume that he thinks you're an incapable inferior and don't feel less "empowered" by the gentlemanly offer. I'm sure many men do these things completely unaware of any negative stereotype for women that are often associated with them.
Well, it's definitely 3:00 am, so I need the hit the sack.... Big expedition to the land of Pikeville tomorrow... hooray for me.
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