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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house top works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen. If you're on

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Speaker 1: a first date with a fellow, what expectations do you

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Speaker 1: have about certain aspects of his manner towards you on

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Speaker 1: the date? Do you expect him to open the door

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Speaker 1: for you? Well, you know, I don't. I don't. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to say that I expect him to to

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Speaker 1: open or not open a door for me. If he

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Speaker 1: happens to open a door for me, then that's then

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Speaker 1: that's nice and I will walk through it. You're not

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Speaker 1: gonna make a mental note if he just walks in

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Speaker 1: without hole in the door for you, If he walks

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Speaker 1: in ahead of me and makes no attempt to hold

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Speaker 1: a door open. But yeah, I would find that rude,

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Speaker 1: a little bit rude. Um. So let's say, now the

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Speaker 1: night goes on and you're chilly in the restaurant, should

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Speaker 1: he give you his coat? Or not? Um? I mean,

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Speaker 1: am I visibly shivering? Oh? Well, well, you you know

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Speaker 1: I think he'd offer, maybe, so that you'd expect that,

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Speaker 1: I see. I hate. I hate saying all these expectations. Um,

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Speaker 1: if I you know, if I'm uncomfortable, I would I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily up put it this way. I wouldn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: expect him to give me his coat, because he might

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Speaker 1: not even be wearing a coat. Um, but I would

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Speaker 1: expect him to acknowledge my discomfort. That's a good way

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Speaker 1: to put it. Okay. Um, the waiter comes and he

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Speaker 1: just orders a bottle of wine without asking, how's that

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Speaker 1: going to go over? Not well? Not well? No, I

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Speaker 1: would like him. I would. I would expect for him

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Speaker 1: to be interested in my taste as well. You know,

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Speaker 1: you don't want him saying two steaks and two lobsters

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Speaker 1: right here? I mean, well, I'd be totally fine with

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Speaker 1: that order. Uh. I would again expect him to be

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Speaker 1: interested in what in my palate. All right, so he's ordered,

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Speaker 1: Let's say he's order the two steaks and the two

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Speaker 1: lobsters just for the sake of argument. Then the check

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Speaker 1: comes and he goes, let me go have season this one.

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Speaker 1: I would say, my friend, you ordered two steaks and

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Speaker 1: two lobsters. So I think that, Um, well, no, I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't say anything. If he said let's go have these,

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Speaker 1: I'd say all right, but I would do it be grudgingly.

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Speaker 1: You know, you'd make a mental note. I would make

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Speaker 1: a big mental note. Now, Chris and I tried to

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Speaker 1: pick extremes because I was just trying to give a

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Speaker 1: few examples of what people consider to be chivalry and

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Speaker 1: sort of an old fashioned sense of the word. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you think about mad Men are favorite show. The

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Speaker 1: guys are always ordering the food for the women. They're

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Speaker 1: giving coats away, are opening doors, They're standing and sitting

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Speaker 1: down when people exit an inter um, they take the check.

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Speaker 1: There would never be a question of I don't even

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Speaker 1: know what women had in their pocketbooks back then. It

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Speaker 1: certainly wasn't money cigarette cigarettes. True. Um, but there is

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Speaker 1: sort of this very old fashioned sense that the man

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Speaker 1: was in charge of the lady's comfort the whole night through. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and this behavior has become known as chivalry, even though

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Speaker 1: that's not the traditional original sense of the word. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if we go back to the days of nights, okay,

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Speaker 1: and I h s yes, back to feudal feudal times,

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Speaker 1: my favorite time test of times, really, this is coming

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Speaker 1: from Encyclopedia Britannica. Um. Chivalry, of course is associated with knighthood,

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Speaker 1: and essentially it is the honorable and courteous conduct expected

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Speaker 1: of a night everything. Yeah, everything from like what they're

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Speaker 1: wearing too, how they hang their sword at night. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and of course how they would treat women folk, which

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Speaker 1: was not actually schalry. It was sort of a subset

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Speaker 1: of salery called courtly love. Yes, courtly love practice during

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, which was it was kind of yeah,

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Speaker 1: sort of an addendum to the code of chivalry. And uh,

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Speaker 1: a lot of these rules of courtly love, Um, we're

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Speaker 1: actually written down there were you know, all the troubadours

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Speaker 1: of the day were expected to memorize them all, and

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Speaker 1: all the writers are writing tales of how these nights

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Speaker 1: exhibited courtly love. The rules as recorded by Frenchmen actually

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Speaker 1: have very little to do with what we consider chivalry today. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: These are more just kind of basic facts about love,

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Speaker 1: such I don't even think for facts I don't agree with. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, just sort of a little

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Speaker 1: sayings like he who is not jealous cannot love. When

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Speaker 1: made public, love rarely endors. It is well known that

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Speaker 1: love is always increasing or decreasing. But no, nowhere in

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Speaker 1: here does it say he should always open the door

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Speaker 1: for his fair maidens. No, it says things like boys

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Speaker 1: do not love until they arrive at the age of maturity.

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Speaker 1: So I think that it's really interesting that those were

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages rules of love. UM. But because of

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Speaker 1: that association with knights and with the concept of chivalry, UM,

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Speaker 1: chivalry has evolved the ages just to mean courtesy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's sort of what UM people mean. In a general sense,

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Speaker 1: it's courtesy. But because the knights, for the traditional practitioners

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Speaker 1: of it usually means courtesy towards a woman because she

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Speaker 1: is a woman. And that's why, you know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of women today have a problem with so called acts

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Speaker 1: of chivalry because you know, with women today, we are

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Speaker 1: we're strong, and we don't necessarily need to be treated

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Speaker 1: like delicate flowers who can't make it across the road

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Speaker 1: on our own. Um. So thanks, but no thanks. I

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Speaker 1: can open the door, I can pay the tab, I

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Speaker 1: can you know, I can can do whatever a man

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Speaker 1: can do. And so that's why it's it's sort of

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Speaker 1: a complicated concept today. And that's why the question we're

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Speaker 1: gonna ask is should ship all Redie has its has

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Speaker 1: its time coming gone? Has its time coming gone? And

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Speaker 1: and Molly you were saying though, that this question is

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Speaker 1: not a new one at all. Know, when I started

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Speaker 1: researching this um, you know, I obviously expected a lot

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Speaker 1: to find a lot of sources that traced problems with

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Speaker 1: silry to second wave feminism, to those strides when we're

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Speaker 1: making in entering the workplace. But this question, you know,

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Speaker 1: the earliest instance that I've found of it being asked

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Speaker 1: was nineteen eleven in the New York Times, where some

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Speaker 1: man wrote a op ed that said, basically, if if

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Speaker 1: women want the right to vote, then I'm sure not

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Speaker 1: gonna sure not going to open any more doors for them.

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Speaker 1: Gali g gali gali g and uh. And now today

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Speaker 1: there was a Washington Post poll um not too long

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Speaker 1: ago found that eight out of ten Americans say that

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Speaker 1: women today are treated with less chivalry than in the past.

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Speaker 1: You know, and I would kind of agree with that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if we're thinking about chivalry in terms of that,

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Speaker 1: you know, mad Men's style over the top women must

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Speaker 1: be taken care of moment to moment um, then sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we we aren't, you know, we aren't coddled kind of

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Speaker 1: like we used to be. But here's where we're gonna

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Speaker 1: get into some fine lines, Kristen, because you know, you

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Speaker 1: and I and we should note we are good Southern

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Speaker 1: girls born and raised in the South. We're bringing you

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Speaker 1: this very podcast from Atlanta, Georgia right here down in

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Speaker 1: Dan in Atlanta, Georgia's right, and uh, we have both

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Speaker 1: talked about how, despite the good feminist we are believing

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Speaker 1: in equality of every sort, that if we go on

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Speaker 1: a date, a first date, and the guy doesn't open

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Speaker 1: the door, we might make a mental note. Yeah maybe, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just you know, there are there are

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Speaker 1: certain behaviors that um that you do become accustomed to.

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Speaker 1: For instance, in our building that that Molly and I

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Speaker 1: work in. If you walk into an elevator and it's

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Speaker 1: you and a guy, you know that when the elevator

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Speaker 1: hits the lobby, you walk out first, exactly because otherwise

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Speaker 1: you you will have some like face down where he

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Speaker 1: will he will wait for you to get out of

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Speaker 1: the elevator, so you just you know, you just cruise

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Speaker 1: on exactly. If you're on public transportation, it's pretty much

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Speaker 1: a given that in this area, a man will give

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Speaker 1: up his seat for you. Yeah, so the question is,

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Speaker 1: you know, are those are those men uh demeeting us

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Speaker 1: by saying, you know, oh well she can't stand for

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Speaker 1: the duration of the strain trip. No. I don't think

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Speaker 1: that's the case of all that all. I think that

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Speaker 1: they're just trying to be to be polite and to

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Speaker 1: be courteous. I don't know that it's necessarily keeping me back,

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Speaker 1: and heck, I don't mind being the first person on

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Speaker 1: the elevator. All right, But that's the question we're going

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Speaker 1: to have to grapple with christ and I am really

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Speaker 1: interested to see if we're more willing to accept those

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Speaker 1: forms of politeness than maybe some of our other listeners are.

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Speaker 1: I do have one friend that um, when she's on

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Speaker 1: buses and a man offers her a seat, she won't

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Speaker 1: take it. She just will not take it. And I'd

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Speaker 1: be like, take that seat if you're not going to

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Speaker 1: take it, and uh So it's it's a really fine line,

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Speaker 1: and there are going to be critics of of us

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Speaker 1: who will say, well, you're trying to have it both ways.

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Speaker 1: You want to be equal in the workplace, but you

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Speaker 1: want someone to open the door for you can you

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Speaker 1: really have it both ways? And there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of trend pieces about how as crazy women are really

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Speaker 1: screwing up the dating world by having these contradictory impulses,

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Speaker 1: the impulse to be seen as a complete equal, uh,

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Speaker 1: in terms of the dinner conversation, in terms of our

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Speaker 1: earning power should we get married. Uh, you know, we

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Speaker 1: want to keep our last name. We've got all these ideals.

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Speaker 1: But the end of the night, you know, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to turn down at dinner that someone else is

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Speaker 1: paying for, despite that earning power that I want you

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Speaker 1: to be so very aware of. And it's it is contradictory,

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Speaker 1: and it's but you know, it's it's somehow still feels right.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know how to reconcile that. Well, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: and um, and I think it's for for our generation

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Speaker 1: of women, it is particularly tricky. And I'm gonna I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna quote now from uh, from an article by Tracy

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Speaker 1: Clark Florey in Salon in which she's kind of approaching

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Speaker 1: this question of the concept of modern day chivalry, if

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Speaker 1: you will, in dating and she takes on this uh,

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Speaker 1: this piece that was written by woman ks him a Witz,

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Speaker 1: who argues that young men are exposed to a series

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Speaker 1: of quote misques, cross purposes, and half conscious contradictory female

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Speaker 1: expectations that are alternately proudly egalitarian and coyly traditional. They

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Speaker 1: want you to open the door. They don't want you

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Speaker 1: to open the door, but they do want you to

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Speaker 1: pay for dinner. They want chivalry one moment and evolved

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Speaker 1: egalitarianism the next. And while I don't think that it's

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Speaker 1: you know, that's true one percent of the time, I

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Speaker 1: think that it is you know, she does make a

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Speaker 1: decent point there. I think we've already between the two

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Speaker 1: has probably sent out a lot of mixed signals in

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Speaker 1: terms of what we'd expect or what we and like

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Speaker 1: you said at the beginning, Christian expect is it wrong?

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Speaker 1: Is the wrong word? I don't think you'd go into

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Speaker 1: any date thinking, man, if he doesn't open the car

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Speaker 1: door for me, minus five points thanks, um. But you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just it's something you become aware of, and it

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Speaker 1: does become weird when it's uh twisted up in your

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Speaker 1: ideas of what common courtesy is. So I do understand

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Speaker 1: how that, um, there can be sort of that that

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Speaker 1: confusion among men. But what I was really kind of

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Speaker 1: disturbed by was that Clark Flory says that these men,

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Speaker 1: because we're giving them so many crazy cues, are practicing

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Speaker 1: something called dating Darwinism, in which they become sort of

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Speaker 1: the biggest jerks they can be to make the point

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Speaker 1: that they're not treating you any uh, with any special

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Speaker 1: respect at all. Yeah, they're basically turning there. It's like

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Speaker 1: the chivalry backlash basically where they just kind of treat

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Speaker 1: us like dirt and and we were like a dude.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if we want, you know, this is again

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Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be kind of tricky to navigate. But

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Speaker 1: if we do want to be seen as equal to guys,

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Speaker 1: then are we just one of the guys. So here's

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Speaker 1: my big question, though, Molly, we keep we keep interchanging

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Speaker 1: chivalry and courtesy and civility. Uh So, so my question

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Speaker 1: here is maybe we shouldn't be asking so much whether

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Speaker 1: or not chivalry should die, but whether chivalry and in

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Speaker 1: its true form and its actual definition, what what chivalry

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Speaker 1: really means, if it even exists today, or whether what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about is just social courtesy. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: these these kinds of social patterns that we've just kind

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Speaker 1: of adopted in terms of male female relations, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of the knee jerk, open a door, knee jerk,

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Speaker 1: pick up a tab, all of those kind of things

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Speaker 1: that are being challenged, you know, as as we evolve,

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Speaker 1: you know, um, and especially in in the dating context,

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Speaker 1: is that whole landscape continues to change because it is

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Speaker 1: radically changed, I will say for our generation in particular.

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Speaker 1: So maybe maybe chivalry isn't even even the question anymore.

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Speaker 1: It's just such a loaded word. I mean, it's exactly

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Speaker 1: when we've had conversations about feminism. It's so loaded. And

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Speaker 1: if you go back to the original meaning, and if

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Speaker 1: it's about nights, you know, wearing certain you know, coats

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Speaker 1: of armor on certain days, it's not relevant. I think

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Speaker 1: when people get upset or concerned about how courtesy relates

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Speaker 1: to feminism is when it seems to be some sort

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Speaker 1: of special act that acknowledges gender. And I think that

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Speaker 1: maybe what we women don't do is look at the

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Speaker 1: ways in which we are in return courteous to men. Uh,

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Speaker 1: perhaps in a dating situation or on a train. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if if a young father comes on the train and

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Speaker 1: he's got like two kids, and he's trying to wrestle

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Speaker 1: them into place he can have the seat. It's not

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Speaker 1: a matter of the woman always wins. It's more a

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Speaker 1: matter of you know, I think that people see showry

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Speaker 1: is so one sided, and that's why it seems unfair

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Speaker 1: to put it in context with feminism, whereas there are

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Speaker 1: things that we do in return that maybe just aren't.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we put on the charm on our dinner dates,

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Speaker 1: we take showers, throw on some makeup. I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: that those are the equal acts to opening a door,

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Speaker 1: but I just wonder if because chalbry has become this

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Speaker 1: thing that men do, we overlook the things that women

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Speaker 1: do in return, be it cooking dinner one night, picking

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Speaker 1: up the grocery. Yeah, and goodness, Molly, I mean you

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Speaker 1: and I both opened doors for people. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: just it's something that that it just it happens now

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Speaker 1: as as a natural byproduct, whoever becauess the door first,

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Speaker 1: better opened the door door. Yeah, exactly, common courtesy. Here's

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Speaker 1: maybe they should do this to just create equality and dating,

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Speaker 1: every restaurant that might ever be used as a date

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Speaker 1: location should have either revolving doors or the double doors

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Speaker 1: I like the double doors because first one person opens

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Speaker 1: and the person goes in, and they get to the

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Speaker 1: second door first, and then they opened the door, but

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Speaker 1: the other person WHOA. I'm guessing the expense of putting

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Speaker 1: double doors in every place that might be used as

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Speaker 1: a dating locale would be would be excessive. But I

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Speaker 1: do like the double doors because that way everyone gets

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Speaker 1: to participate. Well, here's the thing. You know, you and

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Speaker 1: I have been hashing this out, and I think this

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Speaker 1: might be a good opportunity to toss in a male

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Speaker 1: perspective in this UM. This is from Men's News Daily,

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Speaker 1: which Molly and I subscribe to. Not really UM, but

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Speaker 1: the the This is Men's Wu's Aliens, an article kind

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Speaker 1: of hashing out UM for for men. This question of

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Speaker 1: whether or not, Yeah, whether or not chivalry and just

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Speaker 1: general politeness is really something that that guys need to

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Speaker 1: keep doing. And he says the very point of chivalry

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Speaker 1: is that it's a man's way of showing respect for

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Speaker 1: a woman by taking care of her physical safety, whether

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Speaker 1: by fending off an attacker simply pulling out a chair

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Speaker 1: for a woman. The traditional way to repay chivalry is

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Speaker 1: not by being chivalrous back but to repay the man

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Speaker 1: by being sweet or cooking some food for him. Chivalry

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Speaker 1: is therefore an intrinsic part of our traditional gender roles,

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Speaker 1: and the concept is impossible to preserve if you're for

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Speaker 1: a society where men and women have exactly the same roles.

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Speaker 1: And I think that is a pretty good point. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the biggest risk that we're

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Speaker 1: running here, Kristen is people will write in and say

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Speaker 1: that we're trying to have it both ways, that we

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Speaker 1: want all this equality, but we still don't mind taking

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Speaker 1: seats when they're offered to us. Yeah, And I mean

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Speaker 1: that's that's one thing. Like we said, we're from the South,

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Speaker 1: maybe we just um have different ideas of politeness um

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Speaker 1: and what courtesy is. And I don't see those I

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Speaker 1: don't always see a gender reason for why I'm being

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Speaker 1: offered a seat, even though that might be in the

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Speaker 1: person who's offering itce mind. But but if but if

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Speaker 1: someone pulls that seat out for you different and says,

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Speaker 1: take a load off those tiny tiny feet, take a

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Speaker 1: load all those gams, then yeah, I might I might

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Speaker 1: get a little skis out. I mean, he's he's saying

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Speaker 1: that if we're going to call it chivalry, there's gonna

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Speaker 1: be gender roles associated with it if we call it courtesy.

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Speaker 1: Are those gender roles still there? And is it as

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Speaker 1: potentially offensive? Yeah, I say, maybe not as much. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's all maybe maybe we're just arguing semantics. Maybe it's

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Speaker 1: just all you know, problems with vocabulary. Chivalry is just

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Speaker 1: such a like you said, such a loaded term that

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Speaker 1: um that it's it will always at some point be

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Speaker 1: perceived as negative. Yeah, in some light, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: We don't know. I mean, we didn't start this podcast

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Speaker 1: with any answer in mind as if that is not

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Speaker 1: abundantly clear, and there was no expert source out there

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Speaker 1: to tell us what the right or wrong answer was.

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Speaker 1: That's why, that's kind of why we did it. Was

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Speaker 1: just to get people's viewpoints on it. And we are

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Speaker 1: asking all of you to write in to mom stuff

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Speaker 1: at how stuff or dot com. Are we are irrationalizing

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Speaker 1: if we're if we're good feminists, should we you know,

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Speaker 1: go Dutch? Should we pick up tabs more than we

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Speaker 1: might now? Or is it just not a big deal

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Speaker 1: if a guy opens a car door and guys, I mean,

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Speaker 1: are are we sending out all of these mixed signals

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Speaker 1: of like yeah, open the store but not that door,

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Speaker 1: and or pay for this but don't order that. You know,

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Speaker 1: is this is it? It's just a huge chivalrous mess

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Speaker 1: out there that you have to dive into as well.

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Speaker 1: We want to know your thoughts because clearly we're in

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Speaker 1: the same miss as you are. So email us at

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Speaker 1: Mom's Stuff at how stuff works dot com and let's

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Speaker 1: work this out together. Yes, I think with with all

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Speaker 1: our listeners we can we can nail down the hill,

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Speaker 1: right thing. Really, if you can do something, all right?

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Speaker 1: So let's read some listener mail. This one is from

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Speaker 1: Andy and he was writing about the Musical Instrument podcast.

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Speaker 1: It was called why I Don't always play the harp.

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Speaker 1: Andy writes, I recall the reason I started playing the cello.

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Speaker 1: In the third grade, the local high school orchestra came

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Speaker 1: and played for our class. It was then that I

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Speaker 1: discovered the girl who'd been my babysitter for years was

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Speaker 1: the first chair of the cello section. After a little concert,

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Speaker 1: she came over and talked to me about all the

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Speaker 1: awards she'd won and how she was going to be

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Speaker 1: getting a scholarship to play music. Of course, it didn't

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Speaker 1: hurt that she played a solo of the Star Wars

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Speaker 1: theme song from my friends and me. I thought she

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Speaker 1: was so cool that the very next week I signed

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Speaker 1: up for orchestra class and went straight for the cello.

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Speaker 1: Years later, once I was in high school and then college,

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Speaker 1: there was always a woman a chair head stopping me

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Speaker 1: from getting the top spot. So the cello is my

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Speaker 1: vote for the most gender neutral strange instrument. Supposedly, it's

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Speaker 1: traditionally a masculine choice, but all of the cellist I've

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Speaker 1: ever met were incredibly talented women. Well, I've got an

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Speaker 1: email here from Brian, and this is about our podcast

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Speaker 1: on your Brain. On a breakup, he says, a few

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Speaker 1: years ago, I went through a divorce. I decided that

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Speaker 1: rather than developing an alcohol problem, to deal with the depression,

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Speaker 1: I would start learning the Russian language. Whenever I'd get

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Speaker 1: into a funk, I would fire up my laptop and study, study, study.

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Speaker 1: After a time, the funk lessened, but I continued studying,

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Speaker 1: eventually making friends with some Russians, one of which became

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Speaker 1: my girlfriend and then my wife. So that's a nice story,

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Speaker 1: isn't it amazing how distractions can lead to different kinds

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Speaker 1: of distractions, and Brian says, thanks for all the hard

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Speaker 1: work to you and everybody at how stuff works, and

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Speaker 1: thank you Brian. And speaking of how stuff works, you

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Speaker 1: can email us at that domain It's Mom's Stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. You can also head over

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Speaker 1: to Facebook and like us, leave calm and ask advice

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Speaker 1: whatever you please um And then you can also join

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Speaker 1: our Twitter conversation we are mom Stuff podcast over there,

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Speaker 1: and then finally you can head over to our blog

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Speaker 1: It's stuff mo'n ever told you and you can find

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Speaker 1: it at how stuff works dot com. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out

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Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stuff works dot com home page.

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