I have come across many women who will happily exclaim that “chivalry is most certainly DEAD.” I would like to start off by defining the word "chivalry" as “the qualities idealized by knighthood, such as bravery, courtesy, honor, and gallantry toward women” (Farlex, Online Dictionary).
Ladies, at some point we must look to ourselves for the solution to this seemingly growing problem. Blaming the men we surround ourselves with for not exhibiting behaviors we want/like is along the lines of choosing an ice cream flavor I know I do not like and then having the audacity to blame the store for giving it to me.
We choose our friends. We also choose our significant others, so choose a person with the behaviors you like. Like Darwin had natural selection of animals, women should have a natural selection of sorts for the behaviors they admire. If women always have the expectation of a perfect gentleman, then at some point the men in their lives will have to step up and become the kind of man every woman dreams about.
If we do not expect and frankly demand the behavior we crave, we can blame ourselves for allowing the behavior we “hate” to become the norm. Like my mother has always told me: “Why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free?” Well, why change your behavior if the ladies around you do not mind the unsettling behavior one is already providing?
As a single woman myself, I expect a sort of “old school” behavior where a man comes to my front door to pick me up and walks me to the door at the end of the night. There is nothing extraordinary about this behavior, but it can say a lot about the man’s personality and overall character.
This draws me to believe that the true problem with our society today is confidence. If women had the confidence to demand the behavior they deserve from men, then the men they came into contact with would end up having a better overall life. Common courtesy can get a person pretty far in life as can honor and gallant behavior.
We need these qualities in order to interact with people in our everyday lives; these qualities help us to function in a socially acceptable manor. Employers definitely monitor these qualities, and I am sure most of us would like to be employed. Maybe these are not the qualities an employer asks directly about in a job interview, but employers are definitely screening people according to them.
Chivalry may not be a word we use in our everyday vocabulary anymore. Chivalry may even be dead, but whose fault is that?
