Pro: Amazon women don’t need Supermen (Salner)
Are you a woman? Has a man ever opened a door for you? Or asked you if you need help carrying something? How did that make you feel?
Well, to be honest, it sometimes makes me feel like I am physically incapable to do these things on my own.
I know that most men are genetically stronger than most women. But that does not mean that women can’t carry a box by themselves. I am not a damsel in distress and I don’t need a knight in shining armor. I am a strong woman who can do things on her own.
Why should a man assume that a woman needs help with exerting physical strength just because she is a woman?
I know that this may seem like an extreme point of view and I don’t think that men intentionally try to make women feel this way, but there is some sort of subconscious implication that these men are giving women. They need men to help them. They can’t do anything without a man.
This subliminal message is detrimental to women’s self esteem. This message is also a big part of our culture. The media provides us with examples of men who are strong and women who need their help: Superman, Spiderman and Batman to name just a few.
This cultural reinforcement plants ideas of neediness and helplessness into women’s minds. Even ads are geared toward showing women needing help from men.
At this moment, I feel the need to quote No Doubt’s “Just a Girl.” “This world is forcing me/ To hold your hand/ ‘Cause I’m just a girl, little ‘ol me/ Don’t let me out of your sight/ I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite/ So don’t let me have any rights.”
This is exactly the point that I am trying to get across: that just because a woman is a woman, it does not mean that she can’t do things for herself.
Con: Chivalry is misunderstood (Corral)
Hold doors open for women. Help them with their groceries. Walk them to their car at night. Pick up the check. These are the actions my old-fashioned family has taught me to do. To be chivalrous or to be a gentleman is something many men are taught from youth. Yet I am told that these actions offend some women. I have been told that it makes them feel like they are being treated like inferiors and that chivalry is latent male chauvinism.
I believe in equal opportunity for women, in the work place, in school and in the social environment. Yet if I’m on the bus and a girl is standing while I am sitting, I cannot refrain from offering my seat.
Women who get offended by this should not be. But why does this tradition exist? It may be the remnants of a time when women were considered to be “the gentler sex” and were treated as such. Men are generally stronger. To me this is a biological fact, and if a woman is offended by my statement then I challenge her to go to the Coors Fitness Center and see how many women are benching more than the men. From my perspective it seems that chivalry is instilled in young men because of the physical differences between the two sexes.
Because most women are physically weaker and because men are more physically capable, they should do as much grunt work for women as possible because even if women could handle it, it would not be as much of a strain on the man as on the woman.
To add to this notion of physical superiority and the duty that comes with it, the young men in my family were taught that women have plenty on their plates in caring for the home and raising children. In the meantime, the man should go out and earn the money to support the family. So, while much of my argument is tied to physical strength, it is also about respecting what women do for the family.
Women who do not approve of chivalry should politely decline it when it’s offered and do not take it personally as a put down. Consider the possibility that the man might be seeing a physically smaller human being who represents the sex that brought him into this world and nurtured him until he was strong enough to fend for himself and someone who may some day bear the next generation. This man now feels a moral obligation to treat the woman with respect and that woman may be you.
