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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!"