Men Don't Recognize 'Benevolent' Sexism: Study

[iverglas]

7. "People should just be polite"

Absolutely!

It's the defining of "polite" where the problem comes in.

For thee and me, it's treating everybody like a human being, equal in every way to every other human being: deserving of help when it's needed, deserving of respect for their own competence otherwise.

For those who internalize the cultural chivalry model, it's not the same thing. Somehow, many of them even manage to live with what would be the intolerable dissonance, for me, of "women are equal but" should have their doors held for them, their way paid for them ...

That's an interesting response to the knee-jerk chivalrous types: to feel guilty that they think they need to wait for you to to first. Me, I just feel like I'm being herded, which is really what is happening. But I might try reacting as if I feel guilty, some time. No, dear, that's all right, you don't have to sacrifice for me.

Along the lines of what you said about men pushing past, it's interesting to note how chivalry does so often go out the window when it actually does mean real sacrifice. I remember boarding a small (about 14-seater) commuter plane a few years ago for a flight I'd taken several times before. It was going to be full, and if you didn't get one of the few decent seats, it was going to be a deafening couple of hours. I'd been chatting with an older woman before boarding, and when it came time to walk half a block across the tarmac to board, I stayed beside her as she walked slowly to the plane. A dozen men in suits with briefcases rushed past us to climb aboard. Now, maybe chivalry didn't call for them to hang back behind us as we shuffled along ... but surely they should have saved us the good seats! Need I say ... they didn't.