When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
It's funny--and in a lateral way on topic for the thread--but the other day I was musing about that X-Men movie (3? The one where Xavier is killed), and it occurred to me that the moral of the movie is, when mutants are outlawed only outlaws will be mutants.
I need that on a geek button.
--M. J. Young
I need that on a geek button.
Why don't you do that? Print up 100 geek buttons and offer them for sale on your many websites. Stop thinking how stupid an idea it is. The guy that wrote the "Shit Happens" bumper sticker became a millionaire in less than a year.
(Doing Therapy)
I'm really terrible at business. Probably by the time I figured out how to get them printed, and set up a system for people to order them and pay for them, I would be struggling to get them packaged and sent, and would wind up losing money on the deal.
That's why I have other people handle that stuff for me in Valdron.
--M. J. Young
I hope I didn't mention this one already, but a type of prejudice that I think wholly unfair is at a movie theater. A person of 12 years of age has to pay full adult price for the movie. However, if he is alone, the highest-rated movie he can get into is PG. Pays adult price, can't even see a PG-13 rated movie. I say you shouldn't have to pay full adult price until you're 17 and can get into R movies.
Another age discrimination. An 18 year old can vote, he can go halfway around the world and get killed in a war, but he can't buy alcohol? Either drop the legal drinking age to 18, or raise the legally adult age to 21. One or the other.
(Doing Therapy)
Here's one for gender discrimination. My sister has it in her head that women are allowed to hit men, but men are not allowed to hit them back. A woman wants gender equality? She wants to be the equal of a man? A woman hits me, she just became the equal of a man, and I will treat her like one.
I don't know...
I might not fit into this thread very well, at least on the gender discrimination subject. I am a tride and true believer in double standards when it comes to men and women.
What I usually refer to is child-rearing, but I also have trouble hitting a woman. If my girl and I start to wrestle, she could kick me in the throat, but all I'll do is grapple her. Although, I am pretty durable... (count me as a member of the over 6 foot club).
By the way, the wrestling is all in good fun.
Well, that was written right after an argument with my sister. Probably shouldn't have put it up. Personally, I really am all for gender equality. A woman wants to pay for the date? I have no problem with that at all.
I'll tell you what though, I've suddenly developed a whole new level of respect for her husband.
(Doing Therapy)
I certainly will strike a woman who struck me; why should I not? Is she somehow exempt from the laws of the land for having a different form? I've struck a dog that bit me, is that any different? How is it different if it is? If a man with bulging muscles that could flatten me in one shot struck me, I'd fight back just the same. It makes no difference to me.
I will not strike anyone unless they did something to me in the same vein. I don't believe in gender roles at all; I feel it is an outdated concept. I cook and clean when needed, and I expect any woman living with me to get a job of some sort and earn her keep, if two workers are needed.
We were at my sister's house for Christmas. We were talking, she said "Point?" so I poked her in the forehead. She did tell me to point, after all. When I did that, she hit me 3 or 4 times. Not just little girl taps, these were respectable hits. Fifteen years ago, I probably would have laid her out for it. It dawned on me right after that that it was why I was worried that her husband would hit her. How could you NOT hit someone who just did something like that? Maybe he enjoys it, who knows?
And if anyone is thinking "Well John, you DID touch your sister first." Poking someone gently in the forehead hardly constitutes an attack which merits getting punched in the stomach.
Wow, a lot has happened in this thread.
Another age discrimination. An 18 year old can vote, he can go halfway around the world and get killed in a war, but he can't buy alcohol? Either drop the legal drinking age to 18, or raise the legally adult age to 21. One or the other.
The movie theatre example is as it is because of different origins. Entertainers have been discounting tickets for "children", defined as elementary school aged, since at least the nineteenth century, but movie ratings came into existence in the mid twentieth century as a voluntary measure by the Motion Picture Association of America to facilitate the problems that Hollywood was producing more films that were inappropriate for the very young and no one knew how to tell what was what by looking at posters. Much as the video game industry has done in the past decade or so, the movie industry voluntarily established its guidelines to avoid government regulation.
But I am old enough to remember when the voting age was 21 and the drinking age was, in many places, 18. There was not a nationally consistent drinking age, though--in New Jersey you could drive at 17 but not drink until 21, while in New York you could drink and you could drive at 18. This resulted in young New Jersey drivers heading to New York to get drunk, and dying on the roads on the way home. New Jersey addressed the problem by lowering its drinking age to 18--and then it was young Pennsylvania drivers who died trying to get back to their age 21 drinking state who died on the roads. The northeast corridor eventually decided on a uniform drinking age of 18. However, young drivers are already less experienced (definitionally) and thus less safe on the roads, and letting them drink makes them the more dangerous. Thus by agreement the state legislators raised their drinking age one year at a time over the course of several years to bring it to twenty-one, so that fewer young people would be able to drink and drive. The death toll was reduced markedly, despite the fact that many still drink too young.
The voting age was a completely separate problem. It was being argued in state legislatures across the country, and I knew people who were arguing that the voting age ought to be eighteen precisely because that was the draft age, and those who might be drafted to fight in defense of government policy ought to have a voice in that policy. Yet who gets to vote has always been a tricky game, in which both federal and state law is relevant. Many states felt that people under twenty-one (which was the arbitrary age established because it was the date that knighthood vested in a squire in the middle ages) were not old enough nor responsible enough to understand the issues and address them intelligently. Of course, as my father observed then and I concur now, the older you get the more likely you are to think that the age at which people become intelligent and responsible is considerably higher than you thought it was when you were younger. It's not a subject on which you can be objective. But during the last years of the Nixon administration the Federal government passed a bill giving all eighteen-year-olds the right to vote in Federal elections--for the President and the members of the Congress. It then became a problem for states to decide whether to allow these younger voters to vote for offices that were not federal (and therefore outside the authority of Congress) or attempt to organize elections for two classes of voters (those who could vote in all elections and those who could only vote in federal office elections). Rather quickly all went for an eighteen-year-old vote.
As to gender bias, I think that we need to distinguish between legal equality and functional equivalency. We also need to recognize the importance of generalizations as against individual cases. Sociobiologist E. O. Wilson is one of the leading figures in making the case that men and women serve different functions in societal structures and thus should be treated differently.
- Men have greater upper body strength, and thus in the main can hit harder. They are also more aggressive, due in large part to their testosterone levels, and more likely to resort to violence or threat of force in an argument. They excel at spatial and mechanical relations, and are much better at focusing on single tasks, which is consistent with the needs of a hunter.
- Women have have better social and communication skills. They excel at multitasking, and have a greater awareness of their social surroundings. They are more likely to understand the nuances of emotions and relationships, and have a skill set consistent with the needs of child care and foraging.
That does not necessarily mean that I agree with the social rules about violent interaction between men and women.
I know a man who has been to jail several times for hitting his wife. The story usually goes like this: he angers her, usually because he drinks too much and is not the sort of person she thinks he ought to be; she starts yelling; he yells back. They are both of violent temper (I'm tempted to say that they're both Irish, but all I know of her is that she has red hair, and I don't know enough of the Irish to make that kind of discriminatory statement). She will then throw a heavy object at him. Usually she misses. He responds by slapping her across the face. She calls the police, he goes to jail. It is thereafter on record that he is the violent one.
Women tend to throw objects when they are angry. Because of their poorer upper body strength and spatial relations abilities, they usually miss or if they hit do little damage. Thus as a generalization the physical aggressions of women are regarded as inconsequential. It is to some degree as if a child punched a champion boxer in the leg, and the champion boxer responded by punching the child: if a woman hits a man, that's a minor thing, because most women lack the power or skill to do much damage that way; if a man retaliates in kind, that is significant, because men are stronger and hit more accurately. I say this as one for whom the stereotypes are completely untrue: men are better fighters than woman for both hereditary and environmental reasons, and thus the legal presumption that the man is the stronger fighter is usually correct, and those of you men on this list who think you're going to defend yourself in court with "she hit me first" had better be ready to adduce proofs that her fighting skill was at least equal to your own. If she breaks your ribs and then you hit her, you'll probably be excused (assuming you can prove that this was the sequence of events). If all you've got is a bit of bruising, the men who run the legal system will say you should buck up and take it, she's only a woman. And they might be right.
Oh, one more thing:
We were talking, she said "Point?" so I poked her in the forehead. She did tell me to point, after all. When I did that, she hit me 3 or 4 times.So either you insulted her by pretending you did not understand what she meant, or she credited you with being smarter than you are. You did not, I am confident, really think she was telling you to point when she said that. She was asking you to tell her what point you thought you were making by whatever you had just said. I don't think you're that stupid. I think you were being rude and ignorant, intentionally removing any vestige of rational discussion from the situation by turning her statement into a joke. I would not have hit you, but I am not the least surprised that she did.
Oh, and Brock, we hit dogs who act aggressively because we cannot communicate with them by speech to socialize them, so we must demonstrate 1) that we are the dominant animal in the relationship and 2) that we object to that conduct.
This is probably far too much for me to have written on this subject, and I suspect that most of you have not read it all; but perhaps it will do some good somewhere.
--M. J. Young
MJ, I read the whole thing. I found it interesting and informative. The thing that I think is kind of funny is that a teenager can't buy alcohol, but they can (and do) buy all of the ingredients to make it themselves. I used to make wine when I was 15. I just find that hilarious.
(Doing Therapy)
If someone were to hit me and it didn't do damage, I wouldn't do anything. Happens all the time when I roughhouse with a 12 year old soon-to-be step-cousin (what a mouthful) of mine, Nancy. I'm saying if someone socked me in the jaw or something, I would hit right back. Accidents and play don't count.
Accidents and play don't count.
Yeah, my brother does that. I don't know if he realizes he's actually hurting me, but I hit him back full force when he starts roughhousing. But ya know what? There's no one else I'd rather have watching my back in a fight.
(Doing Therapy)
Here's one on the sex discrimination. If a man and woman do get into a fight, if the man wins, "He just beat up a poor, defenseless woman" but if he loses "He just got his ass kicked by a girl."
That's what the MEN would comment on the outcome; what do the women say to each other in each scenario?
I think most women present would probably be jumping into the fight.
(Doing Therapy)
I'm not talking about them being present; I'm talking about their comments. Like if it was in the news; guys might say that stuff, but gals...?
"What a jerk. He should be able to take a punch." If he fought back. If not. "what a wimp. He should be able to take a punch."
Girls feel they have a right to clobber guys, but not the reverse.
I do agree that girls have the right to slap guys (I guess) but not outright clobber them.
See, there is a double standard here, but that's proper. You have two standards when you are measuring two different things. At the level of human, we are all the same. At the level of man and woman we are different and should be judged differently.
A man has different privileges and responsibilities than a woman does.
This gets complicated because everyone wants to be fair, and a bit more for themselves. And its hard to say 'you get five bucks and you don't get any money, but instead you get an orange, two hotdogs, and a spinning top'....both sides are going to suspect the other side got a better deal.
Feminism tries to solve this problem by reducing it to 'man=woman', but that equation is not true. What tends to happen is 'woman gets man's priviledges plus a few of her own but not enough to get what she really needs'.
As an example...girls say 'I want to be treated just like the guys'. I suspect many believe this, but its totally not true. What they are really saying if they understood themselves better is 'I want to be treated with basic courtesy, and not drooled over, but if you want to show me some appreciation because I am woman as long as you're gracious and self-controlled about it, that would be good.'
I could go on a bit longer, but I've definitely given enough to respond too already, or more than enough.
And I wrote my piece before I went back and read MJ's piece.
One point I was going to make is that the System of Chivalry is a two part system. There are rules for woman and rules for men. Men are required to restrain from full force combat unless they believe themselves to be in serious danger...she's coming after you with a knife.
On the other side, woman are allowed to slap a man if they are deeply offended. But, its only once, and only when truly offended or deeply insulted. Its not a free pass to hit the guy every day or a dozen times in a day.
One problem I think we have is that we insist on Chivalry from the guy, but not the gal. In that case, the system is unbalanced. Now, it is possible to go to a cruder, less civilized system where if a woman smacks you, you deck her, and therefore the woman does not smack you. But this would be a step toward less culture, and more barbarianism.
We are making this transition from the Chivalric System to the Barbarian System. I favor going back to Chivalry, but if not, we will go to Barbarianism. Justice will demand it, I think.
Feminism doesn't exactly boil things down to man=woman, but rather deconstructing the concepts of masculine and feminine bounds restricting individuals.
These social constructs are the exact reason we're all thinking of a big muscular man being hit by a petite little girl who hits him and what the response would be if he hit back. In any situation of violence the aggressor is guilty (ignoring self defense cases), but if the man hit back in this case he'd also be in the wrong as a punch from him is above and beyond the level of retaliation that's considered acceptable. This seems reasonable, as a punch from him would likely cause significant physical harm which her punch would not and someone of his size and strength could restrain her without throwing a punch. I would argue this is an issue of size and not gender.
To illustrate this point, imagine if the gender stereotypes were reversed. There is a small weak man and a muscular woman. The woman punches the man, he is completely justified to respond in whatever way he could to get her to stop, so far as he doesn't escalate the fight further. The reasoning behind this is his size and strength do not allow him other options.
Also, there are many girls who really do want to just be one of the guys. They would prefer if you didn't think of them as a sexual object, since that puts pressure to maintain a degree of pose, which guys routinely let slide when just hanging out with the guys. It's one of the reasons hanging out with just the guys is so much fun, there are less worries.
-Mike
(I do admit this is written from a feminist perspective, be that what it may)
I grew up with 2 sisters. I swear, one of them enjoys getting hit. That's the only explanation I can come up with. One time, she was laying on the couch. Mom told me to vacuum the living room. As soon as Angela saw me get the vacuum out, she laid down right in the middle of the floor. I went over to her and said "Angela, get up off the floor so I can vacuum." She laid there and completely ignored me. Five or six times I told her to get up, and five or six times, she completely ignored me. So I hit her with the vacuum cleaner cord. She got up. If she had at least said "I'll get up after this show is over" or SOMETHING I wouldn't have hit her. If I had known it would be that easy to get her to get up, I would have just hit her with the vacuum cleaner cord to start with. Not to mention the fact that she could have just stayed on the couch in the first place, and I would have just vacuumed during commercials.
My sister likes getting hit, it's the only explanation I can come up with for that kind of behavior.
"What tends to happen is 'woman gets man's privileges plus a few of her own but not enough to get what she really needs'."
This sort of thing is true for any group that feels discriminated against (regardless of the truth of the discrimination, it's the feeling that counts). XD
From a business perspective, gender discrimination makes a great deal of sense. Why should I hire this woman who is going to get pregnant and go out for 3 months on maternity leave, when I can just hire a man and avoid the whole situation altogether? His maternity leave would be at most calling off the day after the baby was born because he was too hungover from celebrating.
Doesn't maternity leave occur after the birth? The section during which either the father or the mother could take off to take care of the newborn child? This is one of the reasons that paternity leave is becoming increasingly popular.
Doesn't maternity leave occur after the birth?
I thought it was the last 3 months of pregnancy, and some time after the birth so she can recover. Maybe different places do different things.
Another thing with sex discrimination is that women get upset when a man looks at something like Playboy or Penthouse, saying that "It demeans women" Read that again. The feminists get mad at the MEN for buying the magazines. Sorry to say, if women didn't pose for the magazines, they wouldn't be demeaned by it, now would they? Your issue is not with the men who read it, your issue is with the women who pose for it. But of course, you can't tell them that....
I'm not 100% sure on when maternity leave is, which is why I phrased it as a question. I do know that paternity leave exists in some countries, and is one of the goals for equality.
Also there is a distinction between women as a whole, individual women, and feminists. In what you're saying are you saying an individual woman such as a girlfriend gets upset about Playboy? or women as a whole view it in an ill light, or female feminists or female or male feminists view it as demeaning?
If we look at this from any other angle the models wouldn't be blamed. Take movies for instance. If a movie is controversial or offensive the director is held to blame, not the actors.
Now, I'm not saying the women who pose aren't a necessity to the production, but I definitely wouldn't say they are responsible for the product.
Just a quip about age discrimination. I'm watching Zathura. Two brothers, 6 and 10. The older sibling wins all of the arguments. He's a little bit bigger, and a little bit stronger, but that's only because he's a little bit older. He doesn't realize that, 20 years from now, the younger brother is going to be 26, and he's going to be 30. The four year age difference now works in favor of the younger brother.
(Doing Therapy)
Mike--Maternity leave begins before birth, when the mother is becoming incapacitated by her condition.
This is where the complaint of prejudicial discrimination arises: the woman argues, why should I be refused a job because some man thinks I'm more likely to become pregnant than another man is likely to become incapacitated by some other condition? Few single women intend to become pregnant, and although the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers is higher than it has been in the past, the vast majority of single women do not get pregnant.Why should I hire this woman who is going to get pregnant and go out for 3 months on maternity leave, when I can just hire a man and avoid the whole situation altogether?
You'll remember that joke I told a while back, where the punch line was, "I thought we'd established that, and were just haggling over the price."Sorry to say, if women didn't pose for the magazines, they wouldn't be demeaned by it, now would they? Your issue is not with the men who read it, your issue is with the women who pose for it.
So you've got a girl who can make several thousand dollars by posing for one of those magazines. I'd wager that if some magazine offered you several thousand dollars to pose naked for photos it intended to publish, you would probably not be considering whether this was demeaning to men generally. The demeaning, though, started when a man thought to offer a woman money to pose naked. It says, "the thing that is really worth money about you is your body, and that men will be titilated by looking at pictures of it; the rest of you is irrelevant."
Here's a problem (did I pose this one before?) presented by one of my law professors, Robert Lipkin. He asked it in class, and immediately stated that I was not allowed to answer it until the rest of the class gave up. Once they did, I provided the answer. Here's the problem:
Traditionally, men are expected to hold doors for women. There are women who still expect that, and so the male student risks offending these girls if he does not hold the door for them. On the other hand, there are also feminists who resent the special treatment that this action implies, and will be offended if you do hold the door for them. You can't possibly know all the students on campus and identify their individual preferences. How can you handle this so that you do not offend anyone?
--M. J. Young
How can you handle this so that you do not offend anyone?
Don't date anyone?
Let them hold the door for you?
Open the door, walk through it, and let them do their own thing?
Don't hold doors at all?
(Doing Therapy)
Glantri,
Biology has something to do with it. :) Its not an illusion that I've met very few women as tall as me.
Is it okay by feminism for a large man to slap a woman who punched him?
As MJ points out, its not just size, but a number of other factors that make a full-on fight between Normal Guy and Normal Girl to be a total blowout for the guy. If most of those factors were reversed, say the guy was in a wheelchair, then yeah, we'd be angry at the girl. However, its interesting that on the flight that crashed into the Potomac with Capt. Sullenberger that supposedly girls were getting off before elderly men. In other words, in order to flip things around, you have to go waaaaay down the weakling chart as a guy before you get to cut in front of a normal female.
You could see 'guy' and 'gal' as stereotypes. After all, ninety-nine girls have a bad punch, and just cause one of a hundred can throw like Ali doesn't change the societal expectations. Its a form of necessary shorthand.
Also, I'm not certain that not escalating the fight is the right thing to do. Is it not better to finish the fight as long as you don't jump across the boundary from pain to broken bones for example?
The answer is the question is wrong. Hold the door because you want to meet nice girls. If feminists are offended, they've just let you know that you don't want them.
Good answer Eric!!
(Doing Therapy)
Biology has something to do with it. :) Its not an illusion that I've met very few women as tall as me.
I've only met one woman who was as tall as me. Only if she was wearing high heels though.
Is it okay by feminism for a large man to slap a woman who punched him?
Don't you mean feminazism? I would think not.
(Doing Therapy)
Biology is a factor yes, which is why the concept of chivalry was invented. This is also often why it falls upon the man to not exert the excessive force he has available to him at the first provocation. I don't think this just applies to male-female interactions. If a substantially weaker guy hit me and intended to fight me, I'd probably restrain him without beating him senseless. If the people's strength is really such a disparity (and I know this is ignoring martial arts training and the like, but for this sake I'm using strength to combine size advantage/strength advantage/training advantage) then restraining the other person without incurring injury shouldn't be a problem.
In the case where this is not possible, yeah you have to do what you can do defend yourself. Man or woman, in my mind that really doesn't occur as a factor for how I have to defend myself. If the person is way bigger and stronger than me I either run or try to get help, if they look about even with me I'd consider fighting or running (running is always an option for me, I don't like hurting people or really getting hurt), and if they're weaker than me I'd attempt to stop them without hurting them (such as by pinning them against a wall with they arms held so they can't strike). At no part in this does man/woman really come into play. This also shows why I don't always understand escalating a fight, but seeing as I tend to avoid fights when possible will concede that perhaps escalating it and ending it quickly is the right move no matter what. I guess it depends on who's there.
This being said, many feminists would probably agree the man would not be out of line for slapping the woman who punched him. But I can't really speak for all feminists. The ones I know and talk with most are all pretty heavily anti violence. They tell their friends they shouldn't slap men because it's not acceptable to be violent in any way. So some feminists probably don't see this is a utopian paradox because in the utopia they work for men nor women invoke violence.
As for MJ's riddle, what I do is if I'm at the front of a group of people I open the door and wait for everyone to get through. If I'm at the back of the line I stay at the back of the line and continue. What women have told me is irritating isn't the act of opening the door, but the need to open the door being so important that the man will rush in front of the woman or even push her aside to open the door for her. This is where it stops being a pleasantry and starts becoming a nuisance.
"At no part in this does man/woman really come into play."
Thank you for putting to words the message I was trying to impart. Oh, and apparently having the same answer to MJ's riddle as me.
Well, that's pretty close.
The answer is, hold the door for everyone. That way you are indeed moving ahead to get the door politely for the girls, but are not treating them differently than you do the guys, and thus are not being discriminatory, just universally polite.
Eric, your answer is clever, but suggests that you hold the door with an ulterior motive.
Mike, yours doesn't really answer the question of what you do if you're in a much smaller group--given that any of four people could get the door, do you make a point of holding it for the others, or leave it to someone else to get it, possibly one of the girls?
--M. J. Young
Of course, I have an ulterior motive. I wish to be seen as polite, and at one time, I would have been considering the pretty girls as dates. Now, it is true that one needs to be polite to have kindness as a goal rather than just to be seen as such. I suppose its both together, a wish to be and to be seen as. Now is that pharisaical?
Glantri,
I did see my brother (who's taller, quicker than me and about ninety percent of guys) play 'do you give up?' with a fat guy who was trying to fight with me. He dumped him on the ground, and rolled him with his foot every time the guy tried to get up while asking him if he gave up. Eventually the guy did.
But, they were clearly in different categories of ability.
I've done the restraint thing with a female.
Your answer about women not wanting to be run over is the typical True Answer. Women don't want to be one of the guys, but they don't want to be drooled over either in ordinary life, that is. Women want special treatment, but not a clumsy geek offering it. Women want passion, but controlled. Suave, debonair....Bond, James Bond... Unfortunately, women are either not self-aware, or not wholly honest. Or perhaps they're trying to be tactful...
I agree with the utopian desire of feminists. In part because despite my size I've never been that good at violence. But you'll notice that the whole thing is heavily codified. "In these particular types of cases, the woman may do X...once." Lex Talionis was a gentle response compared to the more ancient law which was 'an eye for a village'. Chivalry and the Laws of Land Warfare and the Geneva Convention and all this are ways to civilize the primitive barbarian in all of us. And is it not better (he asked rhetorically to make a point) to have the woman, no, The Lady slap The Cad who made a suggestive comment, rather than have the goil stab the jerk in the hand with a steak knife after being crudely propositioned and publically felt up?
The Geneva Convention creates protected classes of objects, I think. Like ambulances. Chivalry creates protected classes. Like women. The question is...can you outlaw war, and not have it spring back up in a more virulent and less lawful form?
On the one hand, you have the Feminist Project which you admit is utopian. OTOH, you have the Chivalry System which largely forbids serious violence by females, and in turn gives them protected status. I'm thinking that you suspect that the FP won't work because you use the word 'utopian'. The CS will work, but it does require some social roles and certain sacrifices because of this. There is, of course, the third system, Barbarianism or Trailer Trash Manners.
I suspect if you gave most women the choice, they'd prefer CS to the FP. Of course, ideally, they'd prefer the advantages of both, but you can't have both, I suspect.
It is true that Chivalry does apply to some degree between guys. If the guy is knocked down, the chivalric response is to let him get up. We've moved away from that, and now if you knock a guy down, you're expected on TV to dive on him, and roll around on the ground pummelling him. Like I said....Barbarianism. The system of chivalry is breaking down.
Another point is general categories. You can't judge how close the guy is to your strength and skill unless the disparity is obvious and its clear he's in another category. You can't really judge equivalent force for not escalating a fight, but you can tell the difference between pounding and maiming.
I suppose its related to chivalry that big guys are expected to be slow and easy going. Its so they won't crush the smaller people around them by accident or scare them with a display of fury.
You have reminded me that chivalry is not just between men and women. Thank you.
I was using the word utopian to mean the complete and full objective with no room for contrary action. In this way I think all ideals by their very nature are utopian. For example the chivalry systems utopia is where women are afforded one slap for disrespectful behavior and men are expected not to perform such behavior and not enact violence against women. Furthermore that in the case of violence between two people, one does not exploit another falling down nor does one try to use trickery to win a fight. The utopian aspect of this system is two fold. If it worked perfectly (which nothing does) there would be no violence and no disrespectful behavior because acting this way would be viewed as a black mark by all of society too severe to bear. I'm not downplaying the uses of the chivalry system, but merely explaining why I use the term utopian when referring to an ideal of a system.
The chivalry system also has a few drawbacks where it's strengths are perverted against it by those looking to exploit a system. One example of this is domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is often a behind closed doors event and social casts where the men protect the women, and the men closest to the women are viewed as the forefront protectors, leads to a woman being abused by her significant other to be stuck without support from a system and actually pinned down due to the power she had to give up when accepting the social cast.
There was a brief misunderstanding when I mentioned knocking a girl over to open the door for her. I literally meant bumping into or pushing the girl aside to open the door for her. This isn't an act that is seen between guys, if it were all guys whoever got to the door first would just open it. Many times that is how a woman wants to be treated. There is often a difference between social times. If taking a woman out somewhere I always open doors, but that's because my focus is on being nice to her. If she mentioned she'd rather I didn't (which I can't foresee as I'm relatively unassuming about it) I definitely would stop. The issue is by using that need to open the door women start feeling as if they are constantly being thought of as pursuits.
That being said, I do observe many aspects of the chivalry system even if I wouldn't label them as such in conversation. I open doors to be nice, not to women but also to men. However I don't really feel the need to open doors as I know anyone is capable of it. I would protect anyone who came to me for assistance and offer all that I could, and in a fight I tend to abide by the chivalry system, perhaps that's why I'm not good at fighting and try to avoid it though.
Glad to remind you of one of the biggest virtues of the chivalry system though, the system also leads to some of the stronger fraternal friendships where you're willing to trust another guy entirely to watch your back.
Almost forgot to respond to MJ's question. I'm ok if a girl gets there to open it first. If she would be offended by openning it she'd have hesitated and not been the first one there, and if not I'm fine with not being the one holding the door.
Interesting.
I would still say the FP is utopian. Humanity has a tragic element to it.
As part of the breakdown of the CS, men are getting abused. I heard some information that an acquaintance of mine dealt with more men being injured than women by abuse, and this acquaintance had quite a significant role in the medical system.
The statements made in this thread about 'restraining women' and so forth are the next logical step after women shrug off their societal limits on violence. The men politely point out that such violence is unwise. The next step after this is an upsurge in violence as the taboo breaks down for less controlled or more ambitious people. Macchiavelli pointed out that the transition from one system to another system is the most tricky thing one can do. I doubt that the FP is a better system than the CS, but I furthermore doubt that we will arrive at the FP. Instead, we will fall into the chasm between the two systems. Of course, by this point, its probably at least as hard to go back as forward.
I will point out the woman who shot her pastor husband while he slept, and then claimed abuse. She got very little jail time. This is Half Chivalry/Half Breakdown of Social Roles (The FP's breakdown was taken up, but in this case, the new moral constraints were not).
Of course, this does not exactly answer your point. The direct response is two-fold. 1)Humanity is tragic. Not all problems are solvable. Sometimes when you fix one problem, you merely trade it for another worse one. After a certain point of governmental power, the only way to improve society is to improve people because any further expansion of power does more harm than good. 2)I would think an expansion on the chivalry system would be the best solution. In the Old West, if a lady was offended, the offendee could soon find himself swinging according to Louis L'amour (who unlike most TV writers actually talked to some of the real gunslingers of the Old West). In Victorian England, it was considered appropriate behavior for a man to risk his life for a lady in the street that he did not know.
As to the knocking over, I think I much got the point. I'll stand by my statement. As to not always wanting to be pursued...ahem. Can't cheat on biology. The opening of a door does not always have that meaning either.