Fellas who were raised with old school values were taught to open doors for women, pull out their chairs, give them their coat to keep them warm, etc. These behaviors were as I was taught, what men did for women -- it was expected. Even though those basic acts of common courtesy were expected from men they were met with gratitude from women which leads to my point. If it can be said that chivalry is dead then is it safe to say women killed it and lack of gratitude was the weapon they used?
Take this example. A man holds the door open for two women, the first woman thanks the man but the second woman doesn't. Then the first woman holds another door open and the second woman walks through it thanking the first woman. Was the man invisible to the second woman? Why would she thank the first woman and not the man?
I'm sure someone somewhere is going to try to give an explanation for why she didn't express gratitude towards the man but did to the woman -- perhaps she thought she was the Queen of Sheba and the man was one of her lowly door holding minions. Maybe she thought he was going to use holding the door open as a way to ask for her number. Here's one, maybe he was invisible but she saw the other woman. As silly as those explanations are they're easier to comprehend than why two people holding a door open for a woman but only one of the people received a thank you.
The bottom line is women need to understand that this so called death of chivalry is nothing more than a cause and effect thing -- because women are meeting men's acts of kindness with a severe lack of gratitude, men have stopped performing acts of chivalry.
After this blog entry I know I can expect to see angry mobs of women with torches and pitchforks standing around me threatening to burn me at the stake, but someone has to wake them up out of their long slumber. So I submit to you today that chivalry is alive and well, maybe a little abused, and taken for granted but alive nonetheless. It's gratitude that is in desperate need of resuscitation. A campaign to resurrect chivalry can't be held without acknowledging that gratitude needs to be resurrected itself. In other words there needs to be a balance, chivalry and gratitude go hand in hand and if one is suffering you better believe the other is out of whack too.
What are your thoughts? Is chivalry or gratitude dead and what kill them? How can we remedy the situation?
You know the routine: View, Share and Discuss... Don't forget to leave a comment below.
Follow me on Twitter @bigjyesupreme
No comments:
Post a Comment