I’ve always thought that opening doors or pulling out chairs for women — just because they’re women — was kind of dumb.
My mother tried to instill in me a sense of chivalry at an early age, and I always resisted.
I’m not an ogre, of course. If a disabled person contradicts me on one of my 3,000 ridiculous lies, I don’t mock him in front of an arena full of congenital idiots, and I’ll definitely open the door for him if it looks like he needs my help.
Same thing if a woman is walking toward a door with an armful of groceries, or if some dude gets dumped on the sidewalk in front of an ER covered head to toe in petroleum jelly and Ted Cruz for President bumper stickers.
But apparently my fuzzy-headed egalitarianism has destroyed Western civilization. At least according to Fox News contributor Suzanne Venker.
She misses the good old days when men were men and women were assumed to have brains a third the size of a man’s.
In a recent column for FoxNews.com, she quoted from a telegram a guy sent to his betrothed back in 1954, when women knew their place (i.e., sitting in the foyer in their petticoats because they had nothing better to do than wait around for horny suitors to send them telegrams):
Darling, I shall be waiting for you at eight. With a lifetime of expectancy. My heart will be coming with you down the aisle. May God be with us tonight as we pray we will always be with Him. Thank you for becoming my wife. My love forever yours, Henry
That was the high-water mark of civilization, apparently. Before it all got ruined by women and their personal goals and shit.
Venker continued:
Several days after I’d read this note, I came across this miserable tripe on Facebook: “Chivalry is harmful to both men and women,” relays the woman in the video, “because it reinforces this idea that women need to be helped or saved by a stronger man. And it takes away a woman’s agency.”
The video is part of an "Unpopular Opinion" series on Facebook, a concept that in theory I’d support. But there’s nothing unpopular about a video that sells the same tired message feminists have sold for years and subsequently became the status quo: that men and women are “equal” and should therefore be treated the same.
Oh, goddess forbid we treat men and women as “equals.” I’m clutching my pearls as we speak — because I’m an effete liberal snowflake who thinks jewelry can be for boys too.
Venker continued:
If there’s one common theme in the media today about the relationship between women and men, it’s the claim that there are no good (read: marriageable) men left. Well, gee, I wonder why that is?
It’s clear as day why that is. The relentless message from women and society that men have nothing special to offer—that not only is their income unnecessary, so is their chivalrous behavior—has built a wall between the sexes the size of Mount Everest.
I don’t know. My wife and I share household expenses, divide up our chores, and open doors for each other when appropriate. Neither of us, as far as I can remember, has ever pulled a chair out for the other, and we’re still going strong. I don’t treat her like a frail little daisy and she doesn’t assume I can fix anything.
It’s worked out just fine.
In the days when men were chivalrous, women held a different kind of power than they do today. Feminine power is far more potent than the power a woman gleans in the marketplace.
I don’t quite know how to respond to that, because I don’t quite know what it means. Is it that women need to act demure and coquettish in their satin sexy pants in order to manipulate men, because all we want is a woman who pretends to be weak and stupid? I really don’t see what else it could mean.
Fortunately, as I wrote back in 2012, women have the power to turn it all around—because they are the relationship navigators. Men only changed because women did. That’s because men are born to please women. Modern woman [sic] don’t know this, for they’ve been conditioned to think of men as oppressors. But it’s true.
Hmm. I thought I was born to be the first person in history to eat an entire tub of Red Vines on a transcontinental flight. And to respect — not just please — women. And I believe women have been conditioned to see oppressive, condescending pricks who think they deserve respect by dint of their gender as oppressors. Which is a good thing, really.
Any woman who wants what Henry and his wife had—and who wouldn’t?—can have it. It will take time because women have made a real mess of things. Nevertheless, they can begin by rejecting the narrative in this video. Instead, embrace chivalry. Praise chivalry. Praise men, for God’s sake!
You’ve made a real mess of things, honey. So turn the fucking clock back, and get me my coffee. I like it bitter, with no sweetener — just like my women.
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