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Once upon a time, long after the feminist revolution dawned and yet before we could spell the word–let alone understand it–we were little girls. We knew we were equals to boys and no one was going to tell us we weren’t going to play kickball at recess with the toughest of them.
But if little Johnny knocked me over and didn’t stop to smile and help me up, well, then I told all of my friends he was a jerk. And this idea of “I’m as good as you so treat me like a princess” found itself a little home in our confused minds and it took over…without an invitation.
As we awkwardly tiptoed into the land of dating, this entire concept, fraudulent as it seems, was still very real. I’ve always been independent, strong, confident, smart (maybe a little full of myself, too), and was taught to believe that no guy could outdo me in ANYthing. So why did my mom tell me to let Eric pay for dinner on my first date? Why did my friends think it was “sweet” that he opened doors for me? How can we truly be equals if chivalry is still a card in this game?
Accepting the traditional nods from men that corner us into the position of being a “lady” directly contradicts so many other expectations that we have for men outside of dating.
And to tell you the truth, I feel sorry for guys these days. Many of my male friends complain to me that they have no idea what a girl wants.
“On one hand, she feels cheap and sexualized when you buy her a drink and on the other, she is insulted if you don’t at least offer.”
Chivalry is dying and we are killing it with our back and forth ideas of what a MAN today should be.
If we are all we crack ourselves up to be–independent, strong, confident, smart, AND capable of getting the same jobs as our male counterparts, then why on earth would we cling to these now foreign concepts of chivalry? It made sense for men to pay the way for their lady friends when ladies didn’t work, but things have changed.
So what’s our excuse?
Is it, in fact, fair for us to keep these romanticized notions as a standard for the men we meet?
Well, yes, you know what? It is.
I want to be his equal and I want to be his princess. But the only way this works is… if he’s my prince.
Men today cannot win me over with their roses nor their fortune. If a man wants to treat me like his damsel in distress, he will not get very far. I do not want to need him. (Nor do I need to). I simply need to want him. However, if we can both give and if we can both take and if we can both share, then f*ck it, lets ride off into the sunset together.
14 Comments
I disagree with your last statement “I do not want to need him (nor do I need it). I simply need to want him.”
Why not? Why can’t people need each other? Of course I am all for the modern woman, independent and strong, but I see nothing wrong with needing ones love, just as well as wanting it. A gentleman doesn’t need to treat you like a damsel in distress for it to be romantic, or fairy tale like. While fairy tale princes and princesses don’t exist, I certainly still believe in true love, destiny, and people needing each other. Even the princes needing the princesses.
I agree with your last statement but I feel like Kelsey brings up an interesting point about whether we need love or we simply want it…
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Stumbled across this while looking through google images for some reference material. I have to say, I’ve had the same debate with a number of rampant feminists I know. (I’m a guy, by the way.)
They complain all the time that they aren’t treated as equals. But then they say that if a man doesn’t open doors for them, or pay for at least the first date, or blah blah blah, they think he’s an asshole/cheap/etc.
So which do they want? To be treated as equal, independent beings, or as objects to be put on a pedestal? It can’t go both ways, and the very act of being chivalrous completely destroys any concept of equality between genders. It says “You’re fragile and weak and need a man to do this, that and the other thing for you.”
You need a good balance of everything. I’ve been with my boyfriend for just over 4 years now (we started dating when we were 15…) and he’s figured out the right combination of chivalry and letting me live my own life. He’s always opened doors for me, he insists on walking on the side of the sidewalk closest to the street (”just in case,” LOL) and likes to help me out.
He has raised by his mom and older sister so has gotten a good dose of the female mind his whole life (though he is human of course and sometimes digs himself into holes). He has never made me feel like his “chivalry” is because he thinks he’s better than me, it’s just because he cares.
And yes, I do sometimes hand him a jar that I could probably open on my own if I really wanted to. It makes him feel good to help out =)
Just because a guy wants to protect you doesn’t mean he thinks you can’t handle anything. He’s just trying to show you he cares.
And needing someone isn’t bad. I need him but he needs me as well. We go to different colleges but still call each other every night just to talk.
I really don’t recall how i ended up reading this article, but i thought it had some interesting parts. I wouldn’t say that i disagree with much/any of it, regardless of how much/little i appreciate any of those parts.
I DO agree that there’s a balance between being chivalrous and being respectful of a woman’s own… independence(?). The REALLY confounding factor is that each woman has a different scale for this. So, if a guy gets it right with one woman, it may be (and most likely will be) very different for the next woman.
oh boy.
Ladies, you are not getting it at all!!
Men are not chivalrous because they think they are better than women. They are (or should be) chivalrous because they know WE are better than THEM!!
Therefore they have to treat us with respect and courtesy, i.e chivalry, because we are superior to them
RJ? your an idiot. If women continue on the tack they’re on expect to do your old age alone. The truth is men dont need women they want to be needed by them. There is very little that a man wont do for a woman if she is treating him right. American women? you have been raised to believe you are the center of the universe and your’re priceless because you came equipped with certain parts. Youve been lied to. Men are marrying less and less expect that trend to continue. Men are tired of being treated like yesterdays news.
Solorunner, did I hit a nerve there with my accurate description of worthless little drivels of ‘men’ like you? Oh I think so.
I make men like you, beg, sit and roll over, quicker than your whore mother can spread her legs for her next ‘client’
And ‘american women’ ?? survey says NO.
Try again, love.
Wow, RJ seems to have more baggage than a 747. I feel sorry for her.
Women like to believe that they are “the prize”; but the truth is, we know that we can only choose from the guys that approach us. Because society thinks its wrong for a woman, especially an attractive one, to pursue a guy; they get labeled desperate and sometimes even a slut. It’s a shitty double standard we have to accept and learn to deal with. Too many of my hot friends whine to me about not being able to meet “Mr. Right,” when they just sit around expecting him to fall into their lap.(Luckily, since an early age I’ve had no qualms about pursuing what I want.)
So in other words, yeah, guys are actually the ones who have the power to choose, because if no guy approaches a girl, then she can choose no one. There’s a reason why we spend 3 hours getting ready to go out while most of our guy friends just take a shower and shave. It doesn’t mean that one gender is inferior or superior to another, but that we need to take a more active stance in the dating world.
A confident man does not feel that being chivalrous is anything more than simply being a gentleman. However, the woman must also be worthy of being treated in such a manner. By “worthy” I mean not some egocentric female that believes she must compete with a man for the role of Alpha Male (read RJ). It just means that she is appreciative of his chivalry and accepts it in a lady-like fashion and not as though it is her God-given right. Women like RJ either end up alone or as some toothless bull-dike smoking, drinking and riding a Harley (in the U.K)
Dear Elizabeth:
Anybody who has even a passing knowledge of the original chivalric romances knows that Chivalry has nothing to do with casting women as powerless — if they were powerless, how could they impose such dangerous and exacting tests upon their knights?
So read the book my wife and I wrote:
Dear Friends:
This February, 2008, we have published a book entitled Shadow of the Rose: The Esoterism of the Romantic Tradition. The themes we cover include The Metaphysics of Romantic Love; Spiritual Courtesy; Love in the Imaginal Realm; A Comparison of Muslim and Christian Chivalry; The Fedeli d’Amore; The Templars and the Holy Grail; Love, Human and Divine; Love in the Kali-Yuga; Armed Courtesy; Love Against the World.
During our 30-year marriage, we have come to understand how deeply “the World” hates human love – particularly love between a man and a woman, which is not considered “politically correct.” Romance has not just faded out – it has been systematically cursed. And our shared interest in traditional metaphysics has revealed to us both the exalted station from which Romance ultimately derives – that of God’s most intimate Self-Knowledge – and also the infernal depth of the evil that hates Romantic Love, and wants more than anything to wipe it off the face of the earth, as part of its ongoing agenda: the deconstruction of the human form.
If the World fails to incite rivalry between a husband and a wife, it may draw its final weapon: to stir up rivalry between one’s human beloved and God. Satan too has his great intellectuals, his “fallen cherubim”, and one of their ploys is the attempt to separate God’s Transcendence from His Immanence, placing each in the shadow of the other, playing one against the other in our confused and darkened minds — because nothing threatens the Prince of Darkness like human love seen and known and lived in the light of Divine Love.
I (Charles Upton) have composed the “intellectual” part of this book: metaphysical discourse, psycho-social criticism, history. My writing, being expressive, comes out to meet you. I write about Spiritual Romance, as if it were a kind of mental or imaginative understanding of something.
I (Jennifer Doane Upton) have composed the “existential” part of this book: spiritual meditations, poems in prose and verse, written directly out of the sometimes grim depths of Spiritual Romance itself. My writing offers you nothing; it makes no appeals. Take it, or leave it alone; just be aware of your choice.
Sincerely,
Charles Upton and Jennifer Doane Upton
Shadow of the Rose: The Esoterism of the Romantic Tradition: Sophia Perennis, 2008; 184pp. $17.50 [£9.95]. Available through www.barnesandnoble.com , www.amazon.com , and www.amazon.co.uk. RESELLERS: This book is distributed through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Bertrams and Gardners; query jameswetmore@mac.com for further information.
Oh, crap. I do this. I didn’t even realize it… but I do this. I try to believe I’m a modern woman. (Although, I went on a date recently and found myself repulsed when he opened the car door for me. I don’t even know why! …Because I’m a big girl and I can open doors myself, maybe?) But then I love being treated like a princess.
Crap. There’s something else I’m gonna have to work on, then.
Yes, chivalry is dead. Today it is the habit of the “good guy” who is a boring, grovelling tool. The guy who is a best friend that can’t be dated. The guy who is like a brother. That guy is a loser. The best he can expect is to be the step-father of a Hot! guy’s children.
That simpering idiot will listen to a woman cry her eyes out over her last romance, and if stood up 4 times will actually show up the 5th, just because he said he would. He’s a girl.
A woman feeds him crap and he just takes it. He keeps you up on a pedestal no matter how hard you try to climb down. How can a woman respect a man like that? She can’t. She doesn’t.
That guy, reliable and safe, doesn’t make any girl’s naughty parts tingle, because it doesn’t matter how hard you party he won’t ever take ‘advantage’ of you anyway. He’s a weenie.
All guys are rats, but these chivalry rats think they’re better when really they just don’t have any self respect.
Grrls are tuff. Grrls know their rights. There are grrl cops and grrl lawyers and grrl judges. Grrls don’t need chivalry. Forget him.
Really. Please forget me, and leave my sons alone. They aren’t for you.
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