Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Holding doors Message-ID: <798@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 03:33:33 EDT Article-I.D.: sphinx.798 Posted: Wed Jul 10 03:33:33 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 08:24:46 EDT Organization: U Chicago -- Linguistics Dept Lines: 50 There has been an interesting discussion going on between Moira Mallison and Ross Greenberg, involving serious questions of how to respond to individuals as such and not as representatives of groups they may belong to. I'd like to interject a comment on a comparatively trivial issue, which however was the mustard seed which started that discussion going: the business of holding doors for people. At any rate I *call* it a trivial issue, since it ought to be. There was a time when it was a good exemplar of a pattern -- one instance of how men pedestalled women, not always to their liking, and indeed less and less to their liking as consciousnesses were raised. That general point is by no means obsolete, but I thought the particular example was no longer the powerful emblem it once had been. My perspective here is that my experience in the last few years has been different from what RG reports. I pretty routinely hold doors for people, and I have *never* gotten an argument, or a snide comment, or a dirty look. I'm not claiming to be calmer or more tolerant than RG -- probably I would react with the same exasperation if people were giving me a hard time for exercising a simple courtesy. The difference is just that I haven't gotten those reactions. So how come? I don't want to suppose it's a basic difference between NYC and Chicago, but who knows? Nor could it be because I door-hold equally for men, women, and children (oh, maybe more for children), since the other person in any one instance couldn't know that; they haven't been following me around and collecting statistics. Then what's left? Perhaps a difference in how to do it. Now, please don't get offended, RG, this isn't meant as a criticism or provocation, just a question. Do you think you might come across as making a special point of it, e.g. doing it with some sort of big flourish, or hurrying to get to the door first so as to be able to hold it? I do seem to recall that you said at one point that you're bothered at someone resenting it when you "go out of [your] way to be nice to them" (that's paraphrase, not real quotation). If so, then maybe we've arrived at a recipe for how to hold a door without getting flak in return. Don't go out of your way. Just hold the door for the next person since you're going through it anyway and you might as well not be rude and let it slam on them. But don't bow and sweep your hat off (:-). And hurry to get there first and perform your courtesy only when the other person very evidently needs the door held, say because of an armload of packages. Handling the other end of this interchange could also bear some discussion, except that the answer is much simpler. Nod and say "Thank you". That should do, regardless of whether you're male or female, and regardless of whether the person holding the door is male or female. (Of course, if they do bow and sweep their hat off, you might look for another response.) -- -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar "After you, Alphonse!"