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Chivalry: It's dead, Jim.

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There is no biological gene that makes men want to be like men and women want to be like women. That's blatantly absurd.

science disagrees, actually.

No, it doesn't. There's some sort of scientific test that shows that women like to go the nail salon and wear high heels? Really? :lol:

male and female brains are demonstrably, physically different. infant male MONKEYS prefer toy trucks whereas infant female monkey prefer dolls. is that social conditioning?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys.html
 
male and female brains are demonstrably, physically different. infant male MONKEYS prefer toy trucks whereas infant female monkey prefer dolls. is that social conditioning?

I have no idea what it is other than idiotic. I have to question the results of that test. Why on God's Earth would a male like a truck better? Trucks have been around for a hundred years. That's damn small on the evolutionary timeline. Somehow we've come to inherently like trucks better? :wtf: That's utterly bizarre.

Edit: Now that I've seen the article I'm still skeptical but it is not nearly as clear cut as you want it to be. It says that the males are pickier while the females don't care either way.
 
what does bother me is if a young physically fit man or woman will not let someone who obviously needs to sit (usually one can observe how steady on their feet a person it_) sit in their place.

Ah, but if the person is sitting, how can you observe how steady they are on their feet?

a) I'm older than I look. Judging by how frequently I still get carded, by about 20 years. (That picture in my avatar is about three years old, BTW.)

b) I have plantar fasciitis in both feet. That's a condition caused by my having been born with unusually high arches, which caused me to learn to walk incorrectly, and the tendons in my arches started to separate from my heels when I was in my late 20s. I couldn't walk from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning. (I have orthotic insoles to correct my walking now, but my feet still hurt sometimes.)

c) I had a lot of ear infections as a baby, which seem to have affected my inner ear and so I have no sense of balance (and poor hearing - I can't hear what you're saying if you're right next to me if there's a lot of background noise).

d) My commute to work then involved walking over an unpaved area, up a hill, across railroad tracks and back down the hill on the other side. In the winter, I also had to cope with a snowbank that was nine feet tall because the idiots who plowed the parking lot across from my office did it in such a way as to block the path. As a result, I was dealing with hip pain.

None of this is completely debilitating - I still manage, and to look at me you probably wouldn't realize that I was in any discomfort. But still, I see no reason to give up a seat on the subway given my condition, and I thought it rude when a woman on the bus this past winter actually demanded that I give her my seat. She looked properly chagrined when I told her about my plantar fasciitis - I didn't even have to mention the poor balance or the hip pain. And she was probably younger than me (as I said, I'm older than I look, by nearly 20 years.)
 
You wander into the right field bleachers at Yankee Stadium with Red Sox gear on, though...that's another story. :evil:

No. There's still chivalry evident there. You're allowed to leave alive. Granted you're doing it on a stretcher.

Of course, one could counter this argument by pointing out that showing up at Fenway wearing Yankees regalia is just as deserving of a Darwin award.

Unbelievable. No wonder some folks can't get a date. :p

After reading the cynical, self centered remarks in this thread, I agree.

It's not about whether they can or can't. It's about doing something nice and polite. It's a tradition and it's being a gentleman. Why is this so hard to understand?

I find myself asking the same question and being just as appalled by the answers I see.

Traditions come and go. There are a million traditions surrounding the way a man should treat a woman, many of which most of the women on this board would find deeply offensive and quite rightly so.

Name six.

As for heels many men find them attractive. Many women find a man who gives up his seat attractive. Either way is not a matter of "selfish gain" but rather a natural reaction between the sexes. Wearing heels exagerate signs of fertility which most men find attractive. Giving up a seat tells a woman that you would be a good provider/protector. No matter how much we all want to be "equal" the laws of attraction are what they are. ;)

Bingo. Doing things such as giving up one's seat for her or fetching things for her shows her that you can provide for her and her offspring. If you really look into them, you'll note that a lot of the things that used to be termed "being a gentleman" are symbolic of being a provider or protector. Take the act of placing one's coat in a mud puddle for her to walk on. In doing this, you are protecting her from the mud. By pulling out her chair, you are providing the chair. Etc.

I can't figure out why you're making a big deal about it. If he wants to be nice, let him be nice.

He can be nice. I don't care. But he's calling us bitter and cynical solely because we don't decide how to be nice based on sexist ideas.

No. He's quite frustrated and appalled that his simple act of kindness is being met with cynicism and bitterness and that people seem to have forgotten how to show simple kindness to each other.

You're also not noting something else, something that Officer and a few others have hinted at, but not stated. In giving up your seat for her, you also have a chance at striking up a conversation with her. Just say "Hello, my name is John. You look tired, please have my seat." Who knows, you could leave the train/bus with a new friend.

Just in case my answer isn't plainly obvious by now, I will give up my seat for the elderly, men with large/lots of packages,men who are obviously tired, and women.

However, if I'm burdened with a number of packages or am tired, I'm not giving it up for anyone.
 
Why on God's Earth would a male like a truck better? Trucks have been around for a hundred years. That's damn small on the evolutionary timeline. Somehow we've come to inherently like trucks better? :wtf: That's utterly bizarre.

i have no idea why. females prefer person- or animal-shaped things, and males prefer machine-shaped things? i haven't a clue about the mechanism at work. but there are certain biological differences between males and females that are inherent, that's all. it's not all social conditioning.

that said, i still won't give up my seat just because a woman gets on the bus.
 
No, you're naive. There is no real difference between men and women that is not caused by the social constructs in our society.

Well, that's great in the abstract if true. However.....it is our society, as you say. And in our society it's considered good form to extend extra courtesies to a lady.

It's not required or even expected in all cases. And she is well within her rights to refuse such treatment if she wants. But that's no reason not to offer.
 
Bingo. Doing things such as giving up one's seat for her or fetching things for her shows her that you can provide for her and her offspring. If you really look into them, you'll note that a lot of the things that used to be termed "being a gentleman" are symbolic of being a provider or protector. Take the act of placing one's coat in a mud puddle for her to walk on. In doing this, you are protecting her from the mud. By pulling out her chair, you are providing the chair. Etc.

:wtf: Did we just go back in time to the middle ages?

Well, that's great in the abstract if true. However.....it is our society, as you say. And in our society it's considered good form to extend extra courtesies to a lady.

I'd argue that society doesn't really care about it anymore. That said, just because society allows it menas we should do it? Really? Do you want to go down that route? I don't think you do.
 
Flux's argument is that he would and other men should give up their seat to a woman or allow a woman to take the last seat if only one was available out of sheer politeness and just because it is a woman.

I don't know how to see that as anything other than unwarranted preferential treatment.

So.....? Maybe it's preferential, and maybe it's unwarranted, but.....so what?

I can't figure out why you're making a big deal about it. If he wants to be nice, let him be nice.

Who started this thread again?

Your false neutrality isn't fooling anyone. By defining his actions as "nice" you're suggesting that those who don't follow suit are not nice.
 
I'm really amused that those who are in favor of being deferential towards women are essentially posting like this:

"You need to do this so you have manners. You clearly don't have manners. You're bitter, cynical, dateless losers who amount to nothing. Do you even know girls? You should be a true gentlemen. Like me."

Oh, nicely done.
 
Who started this thread again?

Your false neutrality isn't fooling anyone. By defining his actions as "nice" you're suggesting that those who don't follow suit are not nice.

I don't care about whether one follows such actions or not. But those who take the time and trouble to argue that one should not take such actions and decry those who do? Yeah, I have an issue with that.

And for the record you have to break out a dictionary to decide whether I've ever been on a date in my life. That's not the point.
 
But those who take the time and trouble to argue that one should not take such actions and decry those who do? Yeah, I have an issue with that.

If it's masturbation folks are after they should probably try a mirror rather than a public forum. :lol:
 
I don't care about whether one follows such actions or not. But those who take the time and trouble to argue that one should not take such actions and decry those who do? Yeah, I have an issue with that.

And for the record you have to break out a dictionary to decide whether I've ever been on a date in my life. That's not the point.

Dude, he asked.

That said, I'm getting a little too snippy and I think I'll bow out unless any other comment is directed at me.
 
But those who take the time and trouble to argue that one should not take such actions and decry those who do? Yeah, I have an issue with that.

If it's masturbation folks are after they should probably try a mirror rather than a public forum. :lol:

It's time to call it quits when I don't have a clue what a response to me is talking about, yeah.
 
But those who take the time and trouble to argue that one should not take such actions and decry those who do? Yeah, I have an issue with that.

If it's masturbation folks are after they should probably try a mirror rather than a public forum. :lol:

It's time to call it quits when I don't have a clue what a response to me is talking about, yeah.

You appear to be suggesting that only those with similar views to the OP should bother posting. My suggestion is that folks only interested in having their own views reinforced shouldn't post about them on an open forum. Talking to oneself in the mirror is a far safer approach. Masturbation was a euphemism for such activity, with the obvious link to the "circle jerk" of similarly inclined folks who're able to congratulate each other on how gentlemanly and polite and attractive to the opposite sex they all are.
 
I would never imply something so one-sided.

Maybe you haven't realized yet, but I usually don't "take sides" in these sorts of debates. My participation is usually limited to pointing out why the views at both extreme ends are wrong.

I just get annoyed when an otherwise productive thread gets derailed with an argument that doesn't need to exist. Get a bit snippy because of it.
 
:wtf: Did we just go back in time to the middle ages?

No. However, the basic psycological programming still remains the same. Things that are/were considered gentlemanly can and in many cases still are seen as attractive qualities in a male.

Rii, let's leave the accusatory tone out of the thread please.
 
This thread is far too tame, let's take the gloves off.

Based on all of your posts I think it's fair to presume the guy has more experience with women than either of you. Certainly more class. But he never stated he did.

So is your "hot latina wife" actually barefoot or is that merely an expression of speech?

If being polite is outdated then I will happily consider myself "out of date".

Being considerate of those in need is being polite. Being considerate of those who exited the vagina with two X chromosones is condescending and self-serving.

Since when is a kind act, regardless of which gender performs it, automatically dismissed as nonsense?

Since never. Would you like some more straw with that?

Like it or not, men and women are different, quite drastically so - most men like to be treated like men, and most women enjoy being made to feel like a woman, it's just a fact of life. And not all sex differentiating behaviour is negative, don't be so gloomy.

What you mean by this is that women like to be treated condescendingly when it's to their advantage, and don't like it when it isn't. That you find certain elements of patriarchy appealing does not alter their nature.
 
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